


The Evening Speaks

by futureboy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 1991, 1992, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Radio, Coming Out, First Kiss, Friendship, M/M, Playlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27992295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureboy/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: Will Byers enjoys working on his assignments deep into the night… Usually to the sound of his favorite college radio show,Wheeler on the Mic.One phone call in the early hours draws him into a ridiculous bet with the host.
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 95
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ‘All I Want’ by Toad and the Wet Sprocket.
> 
> Know what’s underrated? Requesting songs on the radio when everyone else is asleep, and listening to them broadcasting out to you in the darkness. (If you’ve never listened to a live show in the early hours, I _highly_ recommend it.)

Will Byers loves his headphones more than anything else in the world.

They’re one of those lightweight pairs - the real spindly-looking ones that can fold up, collapsing down into quarters of itself to be hastily stashed in jackets and jeans. Will got that pair with his first Walkman back in ‘87. They’ve lasted him five years so far. It’s longer than most of his high school friendships dragged out for, which says a lot about both the curse of introversion and the craftsmanship of Sony’s products. 

And it’s not like he doesn’t use them very often. He uses them all the time, actually - on his way into class, on the bus, when he’s making food in his dorm, or when he’s working on a piece late at night and needs something to entertain his ears and his ears _only_.

Tonight is one of those nights.

He doesn’t even have his Walkman out. Saturday nights are the only nights that Will tunes into the radio on schedule, because Saturday nights have the only college radio show worth listening to. Indiana University has had a big push over the last couple years, according to Jonathan, to broadcast a segment which includes safety announcements. Apparently if they couldn’t curb the rampant partying that went on over the weekend, then they could at least make sure that students had access to taxi cab details and shitty slogans.

As with most half-assed, mandatory efforts, it’s evolved over time into something a little different. This year, a new guy’s been at the helm, and not only does he let people call in to have a drunken gossip, but he also plays some really good music.

Like… _Really_ good.

And so Will’s gotten into the routine of working on a piece between 23:00 and 02:30 on Saturday nights.

He wasn’t expecting to connect with a stupid show like this. He’ll never admit it, but he was hooked the moment the host had played ‘Smalltown Boy’ when he was trying to finish a sculpture assignment one night:

“And that was Bronski Beat on this fine pre-Sunday morning, folks. We’re coming to you live from a closet full of wires at Indiana University. I’m your host… Who am I? Just a small town boy,” the host says thoughtfully, “and I have no fucking idea how I got _here_.”

(Any sort of cussing doesn’t seem to get picked up by anyone. Not at this time of night.)

“You’re listening to _Wheeler on the Mic_ , and I’m your late night companion Mike Wheeler, reminding _you_ not to drink and drive--”

And around these lulls, Will can usually hear some kind of drunken fuckery happening a few rooms over, or above him, or _below_ him, and he’ll thanks his stars that he was already awake in his second floor box-dorm.

It’s quite a relaxing routine that he’s established for himself, all things considered. Staying up late on Saturdays is surprisingly convenient for him in a way that it isn’t for the partying crowd - not having a hangover means he’s still up earlier than most of his floor, anyway, and for a few blissful hours after around nine, the student halls taper off into a calming quiet. It’s a great opportunity to get ahead with his pieces for the art show in a few months.

Plus, Dustin’s rarely around on Sundays. He usually drives home to visit his mom on the weekend, but lately there’s an added incentive of going to see Steve’s band practice sessions. (They’ve been close ever since Steve accidentally solved a puzzle at a yard sale or something? Will’s not sure, but the whole thing is weird and extremely entertaining.)

Steve is also friends with Jonathan - at least, if you can count ‘knowing each other since childhood, arguing constantly, and having each other’s back despite not really liking each other’ as a friendship, then Will _thinks_ they’re friends. And Jonathan is really trying to get Steve’s band to participate in the big music festival their college throws every year, so there’s been a lot of preparation for that.

Which leaves Will’s weekends free for radio shows and art crunch-time.

He’s got his headphones on already, needle tool in hand, as something skitters over the airwaves before _Wheeler on the Mic_ buzzes to life. He’s not gonna be able to grab any reference photos for his acrylic piece until next week, so he’s working in clay tonight. Just a simple, air-drying version of the medium he’ll focus on for real in the studio later. No harm in making a few test pieces. No harm in leaving space for some mistakes.

The first song that graces his night is full of rattly-sounding guitars and nineties lyrics. The lead vocalists are both women; Will vaguely recognises it as a British band called Shakespears Sister. He’s always been a little puzzled by how a band from Britain couldn’t spell ‘Shakespeare’, but the song nevertheless sets a determined precedent for his sculpting.

He speeds through his work, actually. The night is cold, but to Will’s surprise, constant movement and a smidge of passion is enough to keep his hands warm and his fingers dextrous. 

It’s not long until party people start to call into the show. Mike Wheeler encourages this often. Will’s not sure how he manages to say stuff like _‘oh my god, please fucking call in and keep me from throttling my so-called producer’,_ or _‘please buy me some airwaves time now that I threatened my producer, who looks really scary from the other side of that glass’._

Will wipes his scraping tool on his jeans, and adjusts his headphones.

“I don’t like the part of the night where I’m expected to decide on the cheesy songs _myself_. So if you want to get in touch with us, give us a call! On, uh…” 

There's a brief, snowy pause on the airwaves. 

**_MAX! WHAT'S THE EXTENSION NUMBER FOR THIS ROOM AGAIN?_ **

**_JESUS CHRIST, WHEELER-- IT'S FOUR THREE ONE!_ **

There's a clatter as Wheeler presumably takes a seat again.

“Give us a call on college code, four three one,” he says, gently and hilariously confidently, “and bring _your_ party to our party! Have a safe one, everybody.”

There’s not much danger in air-drying clay practice, but Will tries to take the advice to heart.

His attention is stolen by a yell from downstairs. 

“Will! _Will!”_

It sends an electric spark of fear dancing across his shoulders - until he realizes it’s just the girls outside again. Every couple of weeks, in the courtyard out front, Mindy, Mandy, and Jennifer Hayes announce their existence at shrill volumes in the early hours. Mindy and Mandy are from Will’s noon class on Tuesdays. They come stumbling into their block, and at least one of them professes some kind of undying feeling for him, usually; he’d be more unnerved by it, but they’re never too crushed when he says ‘no’. It’s almost like routine these days. Affectionate, friendly routine.

So he opens the window and peers down into the night. Tracy Turner is with them on this occasion, and she’s apparently just finished barfing up her night into the ditch. All four of them are illuminated by the light from the payphone booth out front, which casts their drunken silhouettes into electric blue lines.

Jennifer claps. “Oh, there he is! Heeeey, Will!”

“Are you being safe?” Will asks.

“Of course we are,” says Mindy, sounding way more offended than she has any rights to be.

“Totally safe!” says Mandy proudly. “We didn’t even do Jägerbombs this time!”

“Well. Tracy did.”

Tracy gives a wobbly thumbs up, looking particularly sparkly and put together in the lighting despite her earlier mishap.

“You wanna come down?” asks Jennifer. “We could carry on the party at our place.”

“I’m good. I’m working. But thanks for the invite--”

“I’m not giving up on you, William Byers!” she yells gleefully.

“I’m not interested, Jen!” he calls back, like he’s done a thousand times since the semester started, and stifles a smile.

Her voice lowers in volume, but the tone still strikes out into the calm night like a match: “ _look_ at him,” she grins, tipsily nudging her friends. “We went to school together, you know that? He’d be _so_ easy to bring home to my mom--”

“Your mom wants you to marry an accountant,” Will reminds her, “and she doesn’t make her disdain of art majors a secret. I’m not your numbers guy.”

(Well, that and the fact that when Jennifer first started dropping unsubtle hints in junior year, Will had been dropping even _more_ obvious ones to a guy on the football team. Nothing like skipping algebra to make out with a linebacker to prove he’s neither ‘numbers’ nor ‘guy’ for Jen Hayes.)

“One and one makes two! That's the only calculation I need, hun. We're just a guy and a girl who can't do math,” she beams, and throws her arms out, spinning around in a teetering circle until she finally decides it's time to head indoors. “See you around, Will!” 

“I'll see you all on Tuesday, yeah,” he laughs. 

They wave goodbye to him before disappearing into their block. Will waves right back. 

Rats. A whole chunk of his show has run on.

He fumbles with the headphones around his neck, hoping to catch the tail end of the last song, but he rejoins right in the middle of a drunken interview. “You’re always taking requests from us,” slurs the caller. “But you never take any for yourself! So my request is _your_ favorite song right now.”

“Well, I literally play what I want _all the time_ ,” Wheeler says thoughtfully. “But I guess I can make an exception. Okay… This has been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it in a club downtown - it’s by a band from Scotland called ‘Bronski Beat’, and I guess it went straight past me when the song came out in ‘84… Turns out the target audience for mid-eighties dance tracks aren’t my conservative Reaganite parents. Weird, right? Here’s ‘Smalltown Boy’, for like, the fifth time this month--”

Over the falsetto-laced fade in, Will glances down at the phone booth.

Then he looks over his work.

It’s basically done. Pretty much finished. He could leave.

…So he does.

Will scrapes quarters out of his jacket pockets and slips on his shoes, chanting to himself internally: _college code four three one, college code four three one_.

His room is on the third floor; the stairwells are wide and dark, and they light up as he bolts through, headphone cable flicking against his elbow every time he moves. No-one else is around to tell him to watch where he’s going, so he doesn’t bother slowing up around the corners. His luck feels good.

Will doesn't even _think_ about what he might say over the line - there's a singular goal in his mind as he delicately flits his way down the flights of stairs, using his momentum to swing around the handrails for maximum speed. There's just something in his brain, louder than beats, louder than blood, yelling: _you gotta be the next caller. Wheeler has to talk to_ **_you_ ** _next._

The air stings his face when he hits the dark outdoors. (He gives the ditch a wide berth.) There’s no-one in the phone booth, which feels like a lone beacon of light for Something That Is About To Happen - and that’s good. _Imagine_ if he missed out on this gut feeling. There’s no door on it, which is probably tactical when there’s this many students around, and he thanks his lucky stars he isn’t too squeamish to pick up the handset.

_College code, four three one._

The tone in his ear, the cold circle of metal against his head, the clink of a quarter - when did payphones get so expensive, by the way, _not_ cool - and Will punches in the numbers.

Wow, he’s _nervous_. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s desperate - he just knows that this is low-risk and could be, in some completely inconceivable way, high-reward.

Whoever picks up is decidedly not the host.

“ _Wheeler on the Mic,_ you’re through to Max. What’s your damage?”

“What’s my _damage_?” Will blinks. It seemed a bored, but friendly enough question. “Uh… I guess it’s the last song…?”

“Oh, you sound sober!” says Max, who has a distinctly feminine voice with a slight West Coast drawl to it. She sounds significantly more animated with this revelation, and starts rummaging around in the background. Clearly his sobriety is a big deal to the switchboard. “You’re either a DD or an insomniac. Awesome. You got a request?”

“Sure,” says Will, who kind of just decided he had in that split second.

“Nice. I’ll put you through in just a sec. Hang tight!”

There’s a muffled click, and Will finds himself in the strange void of being on hold without music. Which makes sense - it’s college radio, they probably can’t afford a fancy on hold track. Or, if they can, they might not want to use it anyway, because it kind of distracts from the point of the call being about _actual_ music.

There’s a series of drawn out beeps, and then another click. His throat makes the same noise when he swallows, mouth dry with nerves.

“--And once more, that was Bronski Beat with ‘Smalltown Boy’, a track I recently rediscovered and still love. It’s one-fifteen AM and you’re listening to _Wheeler on the Mic_ , and I’m the Wheeler in question!” the host rambles, the information coming effortlessly and unceasing. (There’s a scratchiness around Will’s neck, and with horror, he realizes that his headphones are still playing the broadcast at the same time he’s on the call, so he hastily shuts off the radio.) “We’re here with another phone-in, coming to you live from somewhere on campus! Good morning!” 

“Hey,” Will says breathlessly. “Hey.”

“Hey there yourself, caller number… Well, actually, we haven’t had many callers tonight,” Wheeler says cheerily. “What’s your name, party monster?”

“Will,” says Will. “I’m, uh-- I’m not a party monster. Just a night owl.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say,” he adds, suspicion tinging his tone, “you sound _tons_ more sober than most of our phone-in audience. Whatcha doing up so late, Will?”

“I always work this late,” he explains, “I’m a Studio Art major. I have an exhibition I’m working towards, so I usually have your show on in the background.”

“I’m honored,” Wheeler says. He sounds sincere about it, too. “Sorry that your night isn’t fueled with booze and ‘bright lights, big city’ bullshit.”

Will snorts. “Neither’s yours,” he points out. “How’d _you_ find a neutral zone in the middle of it all?”

“Oh, I’m just a tech that got roped into the night slot. They have to do it for all the safety warnings for the end of the night out for students. College stuff, am I right? As for how I got _here_ … Well,” Wheeler says, “I skipped town a while back and ended up as a Literature major. Exactly what my parents had in mind, I assure you.” He sounds like he’s considering the joke, and eventually tacks on: “had a douchey few years in the middle there, but I think I'm good. Now, anyway.”

“Everyone has a douchey few years. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Got bigger things to worry about now,” Wheeler teases. “What can I do you for, Will?”

“I heard you play ‘Smalltown Boy’ again,” he explains, cradling the handset in both hands, “and I wanna make a request.”

“Ah. So you’re sick of it.”

“No, no, not at all,” he sas hastily. “It’s more of a follow up. A recommendation. Do you have ‘No Son of Mine’ by Genesis?”

“Ooh, Phil Collins! Yes, we do. I wanna hear why you recommend it, though. It sounds like you've put some thought into this.”

“Well, not really,” Will says, grateful that his blush isn't being broadcast to the whole of the early morning. “It just reminded me of Bronski Beat when I first listened to it, that's all.”

He’d been dreading this question. ‘Smalltown Boy’ has an obvious meaning when you think about it for more than two seconds - he’d spent a lot of time in front of MTV trying to find the music video for it when it came out in the mid-eighties. Hoping his brother wouldn’t walk in on him watching the parts where Jimmy Somerville was staring at the soaking wet diver. Thinking about how thankful he was that his useless father was out of the picture, and worrying that his mom might not be as steadfast as he'd always believed she was. Yearning for the happy ending where Somerville ran away with his friends on the train.

“‘Smalltown’ is about what happens when he leaves, right? So I thought ‘No Son’ might be… What happens when he goes home after being gone,” he finishes lamely.

To his relief and delight, Wheeler says, “ _oooh._ I can’t wait to listen to it thinking about that! Coming right up, man, thanks for the request.”

“No problem,” Will beams, sighing out his anxiety. “Thanks for keeping me and my terrible sculptures company, Wheeler.”

The host _hurks_ with horror. “Oh, no, Night Owl Will, cut that bull out _right_ now. Anyone who rings in with song recs gets first name privileges, you can call me ‘Mike’.”

(Will can almost hear the eyebrow waggle.)

“Anyway, I’ll play your Genesis song now - and if you stay on the line, then you’re welcome to talk more music with me.”

“I wouldn’t wanna take away time from other callers,” Will says, uncertainty rising in his stomach like a helium balloon.

“Other callers?” says Mike. “Don’t have ‘em. Quiet night. Perfect timing for a six-minute Genesis track. _Other callers,_ jeez. We’ll be right back, Listeners Who Aren’t There, Except for Phone Guy Will.”

The call clicks out just as Will bursts out laughing. He knows he must look ridiculous, standing in a phone booth at way past one in the morning, plugging back in to listen to the radio through his shitty headphones while he’s on hold in his other ear, but he can’t bring himself to care. Maybe he’s finally gone delirious from lack of sleep.

God, he likes this song.

_You're no son, you're no son of mine,_ _  
_ _But I came here for help,_ _  
_ _Oh, I was looking for you._

Guys just can’t be trusted sometimes. Particularly dads. Will learned this at an early age - from his mother trying to stay upbeat, smoking her cares away at the dinner table, and from the way his older brother had never mentioned their father again after… Well, it’s been almost ten years. Not _once_ has he brought him up himself.

Will’s got no doubt in his mind that if his father had stuck around, then his life would be a lot more ‘Smalltown Boy’.

He’s brought out of his reverie by more beeping from the receiver, signifying he’s about to be put back through. Something about a phone call feels just like zoning out while listening to music, in that he wouldn’t be able to tell you where he was or what passed him by - it was simply that his mind existed somewhere else for a few minutes, not quite seeing the world anymore.

He untangles himself from his headphones again, and gives the telephone line his full attention.

“It’s one-twenty-three in the morning, and we’re creeping into our last hour here at _Wheeler on the Mic_. That was Genesis with ‘No Son of Mine’,” says Mike, “which I should _definitely_ get my own copy of, because that was an amazing request from Night Owl Will. How was your listening experience, Will?”

“It was great,” Will says, and grins despite himself. “It’s always different, hearing a song you like on the radio.”

“Damn right!” Wheeler - _Mike_ \- says, still sounding far too chirpy for so late at night. “I have to say, I _did_ like the idea of it being a reply to Smalltown. Seven years is a long time to come up with a retort, though… What do you think the time limit on musical replies should be?”

“I thought it was just long enough,” Will says. “‘No Son of Mine’ just got released last year, and I don’t like eighties music.”

Mike lets out a genuine, unexaggerated gasp.

“What do you _mean_ , you don’t like eighties music?!”

“It’s the soundtrack to the worst years of my life,” Will says flatly.

“You can’t-- you can’t just write off a whole decade like that, Phone Guy Will! Life can be better when you look back at it,” Mike reasons. He seems _sad_ about it. “Haven’t you ever belted out a power ballad at the top of your lungs? Haven’t you ever swum a couple laps in those deep synth lines? Haven’t you ever listened to a love song and wished someone felt that strongly about you? Or that you could sing it back?”

“Should I want to?” Will asks.

“Oh, god,” says Mike, sounding horrified, “Max, we gotta help this guy. Mister Will, sir--”

(“Uh oh,” says Will.)

“--we’re gonna lend you a hand. It’s pretty much my civic duty as a late night radio schmuck.”

“I don’t think that’s in your job description.”

“No, but I can pencil in a project. I’m gonna make you fall in love, Phone Guy Will,” says Mike. “One righteous song at a time. That’s a promise.”

Will’s brain shuts off slightly.

“And how long is that gonna take?” he whispers, hoping he doesn’t sound like all the white light on a TV just had the power cut out on its audience.

“How’s about this?” Mike asks. “I’ll cut you a deal. If you don’t have a favorite song from the last decade by the Neophoria Festival, then I’ll quit it completely. I’ll leave you alone forever. No more eighties music from me, on this show, for the rest of the school year.”

He flinches. ‘Neophoria’ is the name of the annual music festival that basically the whole campus attends. Steve’s band has a good chance of being there this year, Jonathan’s been trying to pester the guy into signing up for _months_. It’s a big deal. It’s also in May, after his exams - and they’re just about to hit February. Mike is effectively giving himself a three month deadline to get Will to admit he loves something on his show.

And it would be nice to have post-final sleepless nights, worrying over his submissions and his exhibition results, with _modern_ music to keep him company.

“Really…?” he asks tentatively.

“Yeah, _really_.”

Then there’s the unlikely alternative.

“And what about if I do?” he ventures.

“Well, then I get to sit back and enjoy a job well done,” Mike says. There’s the telltale clatter of shoes hitting the desktop. “Aaaaand maybe get renewed for next year, I guess. I’d like to keep this gig, and people dig nostalgia…”

“You’ve got a deal,” Will says, his mouth moving without his permission, because apparently he’s past his bedtime and it’s fucking his whole system up. (Mike cheers.) “Sounds win-win to me, man. When do we start?”

More clattering - it sounds like Mike is scrambling to prep his equipment. “Why, Phone Guy Will - we can start now!” he says jubilantly--

“What?!”

“--I’ve got just the starter track for you, I think you need some, like, tender eighties healing from your Bronski Beat sadness,” he’s saying, and things click into slots on the other end of the line. “Just don’t take any notice of the first bit, okay? I mean, the rest of my audience definitely should, that’s Stranger Danger 101, but you…”

Will remains silent.

“You just, uh…” Mike says. He’s faltering, for the first time since they started their call tonight. “Don’t take that bit to heart. Okay?”

“Okay,” Will whispers.

“Cool,” says Mike, more firmly this time, “then strap yourself in for a trip back to 1987. I was sixteen back then, and this stuff, this seemed like… Well, you’ll know it when you hear it, it’s good stuff.”

There’s a rise of strings in the background of his reply - like the song is being carried on the wind.

“Here’s ‘The Promise’ by a band called ‘When In Rome’,” Mike finishes. “Good luck with your artwork, Phone Guy Will.”

Will tries to say something in return - maybe ‘thank you’, maybe ‘goodbye’, maybe something else - but the line has already cut off by the time he takes a breath to do it. He wrenches the headphones back over his ears and tunes back in, just in time to catch the broadcast of the song:

_If you need a friend,_ _  
_ _Don’t look to a stranger._

Will’s stomach swoops.

Oh, that’s nice. Oh, that’s _real_ nice. What a sweet gesture.

And god, what a way to get his hopes up.

Like, _yeah_ , it does strike Will that he's being completely insane right now. But here's the thing - he doesn't care. That swooping in his stomach is too pleasant _not_ to indulge. Deep down, he knows this is how people get in trouble. How they get themselves into difficult situations. This is how people embarrass themselves, how they get _caught_. 

But he doesn't care. 

_I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say,_ _  
_ _I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be._  
_But if you'll wait around awhile, I'll make you fall for me,_ _  
I promise, I promise you I will._

Mike really wants him to go goo-goo eyes over eighties music, huh. 

He spends too long in the booth, that’s for sure. The cold evening air starts to nip, eventually - biting at his wrists and the tips of his fingers, and trickling and stinging in a strip down his back, where he’s leaning against the metal frame of the box even though he _really_ shouldn’t be, because public phone booths on a college campus are particularly gross.

But there’s music ricocheting around in his brain, and Mike Wheeler’s voice periodically rings out every four minutes.

So he stays for a few songs more.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Dustin ‘Just Says’, in the way that only a person who grew up without siblings can. “If you’re playing with strobe light colors, maybe you should… I don’t know. Go to a concert? Or a club? It’s something you can plan for if you wanna do it legally, your birthday’s like, six weeks away.”

Will shoots him a pointed look.

“Okay, _okay_!” says Dustin. “Look, I just think that you’ll get more out of it if you go in person.”

“Everywhere’s playing techno,” Will mutters.

“So you don’t like techno. Find something you _do_ like!”

Will digs his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, and tries to avoid a group walking three-abreast down the sidewalk. Little freshman assholes. They’re just coming out of class together, and unfortunately, Dustin has another straight afterwards. Will’s considering going to the studio to develop more of his pieces - he’s got _essays_ to write, ugh. Might as well have the material in front of him.

“If I wanted to listen to the music I _do_ like,” he reasons, dodging a Comp Sci student who’s juggling her textbooks with an enormous Macintosh Powerbook - yikes, that would be an expensive accident - “then I’d, y’know. Listen to them _from the comfort of my room_ , Dustin--”

“You’re such a _hermit_. If Steve plays at Neophoria, you’re gonna be there, right?”

“Of _course_ I’m gonna be there, my brother won’t stop bitching about how bad the guy is with paperwork.”

“Yeah, sometimes I wonder if that boy can read,” Dustin says thoughtfully. (The ‘boy’ in question is twenty-five years of age, Will notes.)

They come up to the end of the street, where they part ways for the day. Lunch on campus is so _crowded_ , but they seem to have broken out onto the relieving open space at the edge of the pack of students.

“Look, I’m gonna go work in the studio,” Will says, already fumbling with his headphones. “If you call him up, lemme know what they say, okay? I wanna know if I need to emotionally prepare for Jonathan having a whiny breakdown over his asshattery.”

Dustin nods grimly. “He _is_ proficient in asshattery. I’ll be sure to give you a heads up if there’s been, like, any moronic activity.”

“Slow down, now,” Will reasons. “I don’t wanna pull up a chair later, I got stuff to do--”

An unrestrained snort of laughter splits the air. (Will grins.)

“I’ll see you back at dinner, yeah?”

“You betcha,” Dustin says, and begins to duck in the general direction of his next building. “Have good studio time. Consider the strobes!”

“I’m not gonna _consider the strobes,_ ” Will mutters gleefully. 

But Dustin’s already gone. The guy’s got class to get to; he’s not gonna stick around for Will pissing and whining about club lighting. So Will pulls his headphones over his ears, flattens his hair where it’s bunched up under the band, and heads towards the studio. He can be leisurely. He doesn’t exactly have an appointment.

He presses play on his Walkman with a chunky and satisfying _click_.

Strings and piano and Princess Stephanie of Monaco glide into earshot. It’s a tape he borrowed from Jennifer Hayes - they often swap cassettes between notable holidays, because they’re back in their hometown at the same time, and it’s easy to badger each other to give shit back when they’re only two streets away from each other. Last break, she traded him the latest Michael Jackson album for R.E.M.’s ‘Out of Time’. He thinks that maybe next time, he’ll see what she thinks of a ‘Greatest Hits’ album by Eurhythmics he has rattling around in the back of his desk somewhere.

Campus is fucking _packed._ It’s disgusting. Some big event must have either just finished, or is about to begin, because everywhere Will looks, he can see pockets of friendship circles, clustered around the concrete talking about absolutely nothing.

He jams his hands in his pockets. Walks solidly to the beat, and tries to keep his head down.

_She wants to give it_ _  
_ _(She wants to give it)_ _  
_ _(Ahh, she wants to give it)_

It’s not hard to go unnoticed in conditions like these. Crowds are easy to disappear into - he’d like to avoid that. They make him nervous, because the other side is impossible to look towards until you abruptly find yourself on the other side, suddenly colder, and unaccustomed to the breathing space.

He can’t tell what kind of crowd this _is_ , either. There seem to be all kinds of people, dressed for cold weather and _not_ dressed for cold weather, in hand me downs or tatty college-budget clothes or flashy, fashionable windbreakers. Preps and jocks and people who could be all sorts of majors and minors.

Leaning against the railings is a guy with jet black hair curling around his ears. He’s chatting with a girl with a buzzcut in a letterman jacket, btu that’s not why Will notices - it’s the vile shade of purple snowcoat he’s wearing that draws Will’s eye.

Will briefly considers the lighting problem his art is suffering from, before realizing that…

Well, actually, that particular student is quite attractive. He watches Purple Snowcoat’s mouth quirk up in a smile, as Buzzcut Sportswoman makes some exaggerated punching motions.

_Because there's something about you, baby_ _  
_ _That makes me want to give it to you_

The Purple Snowcoat guy glances up. It’s like he’s sensed Will’s gaze somehow; his hand tightens around the railing.

The two of them make startled eye contact.

_Promise me--_ _  
_ _Whatever we say or do to each other_   
_For now we'll make a vow to just_  
 _Keep it in the closet_

Will feels himself flush. He digs his fists in his pockets harder, almost giving himself whiplash in his haste to fix his eyes at the asphalt again. Shit - that had been stupid, what a stupid and goddamned _embarrassing_ situation to expose himself to.

The dark, shocked eyes of the guy linger in his mind, pressed into his retinas, like looking directly at a lamp and having the afterimage follow for a minute.

(His mockup sketches that afternoon are nauseatingly purple. But he can’t stop playing with the color… Maybe he should get some kind of UV lamp.)


	3. Chapter 3

February comes and goes. Between his various exhibition pieces and exams, Will accomplishes the following:

  1. A two thousand word assignment on the significance of contemporary graffiti movements, and their effects on neo-expressionism
  2. Managing to get Jen to listen to The Kinks - her favorite song (sober) is ‘Waterloo Sunset’, but she confesses that ‘All Day and All of the Night’ is a _lot_ of fun to belt out while drunk. Will’s counting it as a definite, solid win.
  3. Calls to no fewer than five consecutive broadcasts of _Wheeler on the Mic_.



Will’s discovered that Mike might be stuck in the past a little.

He seems to like giving relationship advice - especially to drunk girls - but on occasions, he’s let slip that he hasn’t been in a relationship for more than two years now. He approaches queries as though he’s hung up on not wanting anyone else to feel unwanted.

It’s kinda sad.

“Well, Debbie,” he says during one of these moments, “it doesn't sound like that guy deserves any of your time at all.”

**_YEAH, FUCK TOM._ **

“The consensus from Max is a resounding 'fuck Tom',” Mike reports somberly. “That a majority vote, wouldn't you agree, Debbie?”

“Yeah,” she sniffles, the phone line crackling with stuttered post-crying breaths. “Yeah, Wheeler, you're right--”

“Say it for the people. It might make you feel better.”

“Fuck Tom!” she bursts out, and Will can practically hear Mike’s grin. 

“You heard the lady! Don't stick around with anyone who's ashamed of being seen with you - that's shifty as hell!” he concludes. “Tom, if you're listening - uh, fuck you, man. Listen, Debbie… I've been there. I know it feels terrible to get hidden away like you don't matter, so I'm gonna play this track for you about it. I hope you get to watch the music video one day, because it's really great, y'know? Cathartic stuff. This one's for everyone who's realizing they deserve the universe on this fine Sunday morning. Here’s 'Voices Carry' by 'Til Tuesday…”

The rhythm guitar crunches into the room, tinny and choppy. Will’s heart flipflops sickeningly. He’s got no idea how _anyone_ would hide Mike Wheeler - he never runs out of conversation, and not even in a ‘rambling on and on’ sort of way. He’s genuinely full of interesting talk, _all the time_. 

Asking him to be quiet and hidden would be… It’d be _criminal_.

He calls up that evening with dried clay under his fingernails, and the burn of the metal circle of the receiver searing into his right ear. He calls with the intention of asking Mike more about himself.

And somehow, he ends up asking the lamest, _worst_ first date-esque question ever:

“Why do you like radio?”

“Can’t see me,” Mike says confidently, “I don’t like that sensation of everyone staring at you. Hated it when I was a teenager, hate it now.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Will mutters.

Mike snorts. “Aw, c’mon, I bet even if people _were_ looking at you, it was only because of how cute you probably - _definitely_ \- are. I’m picturing, what, clothes covered in paint and that whole art major vibe? I bet you got that going on.”

“Well, no,” says Will casually, “it’s because I was a missing person for a while as a kid. People like staring after that, y’know? Especially when you hit high school.”

Fuck.

He didn’t mean to say that.

There’s a sickening silence on the airwaves.

“Shit,” Mike says eventually. “I’m sorry, dude, I didn’t know. Sorry, like, _obviously_ I didn’t know, but--”

“It’s okay,” Will says, and to his surprise, it’s the first time in a while that he’s said that and _meant_ it. “It’s just weird to get attention for something you don’t have any control over, y’know? I totally get you, being stared at just makes you feel _too_ seen.”

After that, Mike sounds…

Well, _awed_.

“Yeah,” he says, as though no-one’s put it into words in a way that he believes, not before now. “That’s _exactly_ it. Being watched is _weird_. It’s like… _‘I didn’t give you permission!’_ y’know? You can’t stop having a body, but I guess you can choose when to open your mouth. Mostly. Radio gets rid of that freaky eye contact middleman, ugh.”

Will huffs laughter into the handset. “Yeah,” he grins, thinking about how much static probably just spiked into the radio mic. “Imagine if you were all, _direct to your screens from Indiana U, it’s Saturday Mike Live!”_

“Saturday _Mike_ ,” Mike splutters, cackling into the receiver. “Oh, my god, yes. Get Nirvana in here-- Max is nodding, she agrees.”

“Didn’t they trash their instruments after their SNL songs?” Will asks.

“Oh, yeah, you’re right! Sorry Max. Nirvana can’t come, I’d have to _pay_ for that. Ouch.”

“Is your broadcast room even big enough to host a band who smash their guitars up?” Will asks.

There’s a long _hmmm_ noise, before Mike finally says, “well, _no_. But we could do a moderately sized dance party in here, I think. Six, maybe seven people. Ten if they’re shoulder to shoulder.”

He sounds so matter-of-fact that Will can’t help but giggle-snort into his other hand.

“So I can’t give you the rave of your dreams, Phone Guy Will,” Mike continues, kind and amused, “but I _can_ grant you a request, if you want.”

Will’s, like, ten seconds from trying to twirl the reinforced phone cord adoringly around his index finger. “I’m good,” he smiles, “I’m still not convinced by your taste in eighties music, so as far as I see it, you still owe me.”

“I _owe_ you? Ha!” says Mike, flicking buttons in the background, “I see! Is _that_ how we’re playing it? No problem, you’re gonna get a _huge_ dose of eighties romance if you can hold tight. Let me bust out the big guns.”

“I’ll be listening,” Will promises, as the song begins to fade in, and he traces the keypad with an idle fingertip.

“Here’s ‘Love Gets You’ by Dave Davies… Have a good night, Will.”

“Goodnight, Mike.”

He presses the hook, ends the call, and takes a second to sigh to himself before hanging up the receiver. Content. _Fulfilled._ The satisfaction of a phone call which went well is unparalleled.

Then he slips on his headphones, and tunes back in.

_Close my eyes and think of you, my love,_ _  
_ _This space is full of you, my love._

Will thinks it’s entirely possible he’s making a huge mistake by getting attached like this. But if he’s being honest with himself… It feels _safe_. It feels impossibly safe and secret, and so long as Mike doesn’t actually find out, he’s confident that he can ride the high of second-hand eighties love songs and a comfortable fantasy right up until the Neophoria Festival.

If push came to shove, Mike probably wouldn’t confront him _too_ angrily - at worst, Max would just screen his calls. (Like Will would call _ever again_ if disaster struck, though.)

So he does what the song says - closes his eyes, and lets the sound of his bet with the college radio DJ fill the air. 


	4. Chapter 4

_Bang-bang-bang._

“Will? You here?!”

“Yeah, come in,” he calls.

Dustin throws the door open. “Will, I’ve got this thi--”

A pause.

Will looks up.

“What’s up with your hair?” Dustin asks, in a normal register.

He palms at it self consciously: “I can’t get it to swish back,” he admits, “and I don’t have time to try and fix it, so I just brushed it out instead. Is it okay?”

“Yeah, looks smart enough,” Dustin shrugs. His massive coat makes a rustling noise when he moves. “Looks fluffy. Kinda formal. I’m not used to seeing you with bangs-- wait, what do you mean _you don’t have time?”_

“The exhibition starts in fifteen minutes,” he says patiently, and pulls a shoe on.

“Fifteen-- You haven’t left yet?!”

“Clearly not,” Will says, leaning down over the side of his mattress to tie his laces. “What exactly were you busting into my room for, Dustin?”

“Oh! To show you this!” Dustin says, “I’ve solved your strobe problem!”

He thrusts out a crumpled sheet of paper; Will accepts it. “I’ve already painted you once,” he complains. “I’m literally on the way to the demo exhibition, Dustin.”

“Yeah, but for the final one! You can take photos and use it for your development portfolio or something, y’know?”

“I guess,” he says, and smooths out the flyer.

Will’s feeling generous. But it’s a _terrible_ poster - handwritten, xeroxed, with what used to be color images from Discman and speaker set advertisement spreads, cut out and pasted in the middle of the original flyer.

the mainstream

for people who hate parties and techno

join us for a night of indie, alternative, and new wave tracks. intimate venue with sound+lights, dance floor, bar, chillout room

all welcomed

9pm-1am. $3 entry

_“Three dollar entry,”_ Dustin says emphatically.

Will bites his lip. “That’s pretty good,” he admits.

“Pretty good? That’s amazing! Imagine the reference shots you’d get for the anatomy exercises! I pulled a muscle in my shoulder trying to do that one stretch you needed last time--”

“--and I did your dishes for you for a week, you said we were square!”

“We are square, I just want you to victimize someone else,” Dustin grins. “Or like… Actually go outside, sometimes, you vampire.”

Will knots his laces. “Speaking of…”

“Oh! Shit, yeah! You gotta go!” Dustin rushes, “I’ll be there after two, okay? I just wanted to give you that poster before you left, if you hadn’t left already. Which you _hadn’t_. Hurry up, man!”

“I’m _going_ ,” Will grins, and proceeds to hotfoot it down to the gallery in record time.

When he gets in, he’s suddenly ten times more aware of his creased button down and awkward hair and scuffed shoes. There’s already way more people here than he’d been expecting, which is… daunting, to say the least. They have to dress up for these things if they put things into the exhibition, but being around so many casually dressed people makes him feel like he sticks out.

He signs in and hotfoots it over to his wallspace. Will’s here until four, and his job is basically to see how people react to his pieces, figure out what he can do better for his final submission, and explain his process and reasoning to anyone who asks. Which they probably won’t, unless they’re other art majors.

He didn’t get to talk through this with Mike Wheeler, like he usually would about his late night art sessions - last week, Wheeler had been _replaced_. For the first time since Will had started regularly listening, Mike had a stand-in. She’d been perfectly lovely; from what he’d gathered, arm deep in exhibition measurements, her name was ‘El’, and she wasn’t much of a speaker usually but had agreed to do her friend a favor while he recovered from losing his voice. Will had thought she spoke so clearly and thoughtfully, and she’d seemed close with Max, too, which had been nice.

But she hadn’t been Mike.

Maybe that’s for the best. Will stands in his corner by his exhibition pieces, right next to the print reading ‘W. BYERS’ on the display wall, and waits for questions or comments or cluelessness to be tossed his way. He can do this. It’s just an exhibition - god knows he’s put up with enough judgement from a student body over the years. What’s a little more? At least this time it’s worth a grade.

There must be some kind of promotional thing happening, or maybe one of his classmates invited a couple sports teams, because the gallery sees a steady stream of students all afternoon. Will likes how he can split them into neat little categories - most single visitors are either just looking out of vague interest, or they’re invested as hell, but too shy to ask any questions. Pairs or trios have probably come to support someone in the exhibition. Any groups larger than that are supporting that one friend who loves art.

Dustin swings by, as promised, armed with a huge bear hug and an illegal camera. “Gotta show it to Jonathan, he threatened me,” he grins, snapping supremely obvious Polaroids of Will’s booth at every available opportunity.

He squints against the flash. “Way to be subtle, man. Has Steve decided on a band name yet?”

“Nope,” says Dustin. He rips the film from the camera and waves it in front of his face, kinda like he’s wielding an old-timey fan. “Robin suggested ‘The Soviet Rejects’, but I think that was Sovietly Rejected. And I can’t repeat Steve’s last idea in public.”

“Oh, gross.”

Dustin hovers for a few more minutes - Will pulls wacky poses next to the ceramics when he thinks the exhibition staff aren’t looking - before he heads off, with promises to send the photos over for Will’s brother to look at. (He just _knows_ a couple are gonna end up magnetically pinned to his mom’s refrigerator.)

After Dustin leaves, though, Will gets right back to crowd-watching.

More vivid coats, more pants which are inappropriate for the weather, more tall hairstyles. The gallery patrons who catch his eye most easily, however, are a trio - they’re scrutinizing each setup like they’re looking for a hidden code, perhaps, or a conspiracy theory thread to unravel. 

Will’s gotta be honest… it’s pretty funny. He’s never seen three people look so _confused_ at the prospect of oil paintings.

Eventually, they meander a path through the other booths, and settle into examining his work.

“Hey, this one’s a ‘W’,” says the first guy nonsensically to the second, at the same time as his redheaded friends says, “these ceramics look way less rushed than the other ones, dude. Look at the shininess, that’s so _cool_.”

“You gotta smooth it down before you glaze it,” Will tries to explain. “Things get a little… uh, _explode-y_ in the kiln, otherwise.”

The redhead lights up. “Oh, that’s awesome,” she grins, “I mean, too bad for the stuff in the kiln, I guess. But… _Kaboom._ ”

“Yeah, the other ones here look a little rough,” the first guy tells him. “I don’t know anything about pots, but you’ve got the best we’ve seen so far.”

“You _totally_ know stuff about pot--”

“Shut _up_ ,” he hisses, and the redhead laughs into the back of her hand.

The final member of the trio, who had spent maybe a few more seconds than necessary staring at the ‘W. BYERS’ adorning the back of his booth display, is now staring with a blank expression at the paintings Will’s exhibiting. His eye seems to have been caught by the one Dustin helped him out with, his friend’s spine curling in violets and whites and blacks. It’s one Will’s very proud of.

His friends join him in staring.

After a couple of silent seconds, in which Will awaits their judgement, the redhead finally says: “I don't get it.”

“What is there to get?” asks the first guy. “It's a dude's back in licorice colors.”

“Yeah, but we've been looking at sculptures and paintings and pottery all fucking day. Most of those have little cards with them about how men are evil or that we're all gonna die,” she points out. “I thought I was getting good at understanding this stuff. Now _this_ \- I got no clue.”

“Maybe you're not ready to understand it yet--”

“Or maybe it's not for you,” their other friend croaks, sounding vaguely annoyed, like he's been third-wheeling the physical manifestation of an argument all afternoon. It’s entirely possible that that’s true, because despite the fact that the first guy has his chin hooked over the redhead’s shoulder, the two of them haven’t really stopped bickering since they came into Will’s earshot.

“Whaddaya mean, ‘not for me’?”

“Art has an audience,” Guy Two explains, voice reedy through an audibly sore throat, “and maybe you’re not it. Just because you paid admission and sat in the stalls, it doesn’t mean you have the tools to figure out the performance. There’ll be stuff here you do get, though, so it all evens out, y’know?”

“Oh,” says Redhead, and they all continue to examine the painting.

Will stands by.

It's a canvas as big as the windows in the Biology department, stretching tall and wide across half of the expanse of plaster he'd been allocated. If Will had been bullshitting for a grade - which still has a chance of happening, let's be real - he might say something like, _'oh, I used harsh blood reds and ultraviolet tones on black to symbolize a fear of the human form',_ when really he'd just had a fair amount of purple oil paint and thought it had looked cool, and Dustin had wanted to be artsily captured with his shirt off and back turned. Not to mention that it’s gonna land him some serious points for composition and proportion.

Even so… It does look pretty good. 

“We’re gonna go on,” Guy One says after a second, with Redhead grabbing at his hand - ah, a couple. “You wanna catch up later?”

“Yeah, I’ll just be a minute,” says Guy Two, and seems content to be left alone with the booth as his friends leave - although, if they really _have_ been bickering for all that time, then this could be a much needed reprieve for him.

Will wonders if he should make some conversation.

“It’s not typical, I know,” he says, after a second, and the guy jumps, as though he’s just realized that Will is present. His hair is thick and dark, like an ink blot, and freckles stain a trail along the bridge of his nose.

“Not typical?” he whispers.

“Well, yeah,” says Will, “most people using models are going with nudity for the big points, you know? Proportion and stuff. A little classical shock value. I thought it was would be a little more different if I went with--”

“Someone still in their Levis?” he finishes, and quirks an eyebrow into his hair.

Will cackles. He’s not expecting it - it’s too loud for the gallery, but he doesn’t care.

“Yeah,” he smiles, “yeah, I just wanted something more me. Less ‘everyone else’. It’s nice to get creative in a way you actually enjoy making stuff with, y’know?”

“Yeah. I mean, just look at all these _colors_ ,” the guy says, impressed. His hands make blocky, animated motions: “like, you get up close to it, right? And it just looks like little droplets and spilled paint and stuff, but when you zoom out, it’s a whole thing! Art is so neat.”

“It’s a shame I gotta bullshit in parts for the write-up,” Will says.

“Bullshit it?” asks the guy. “What do you mean?”

Talking to people who don’t know anything about art but love consuming it? Hands down one of Will’s favorite things. They _listen_ to him. “Well,” he starts, “I don’t know about bullshitting _all_ of it, but you definitely have to write what the examiner wants to hear sometimes. It’ll be stuff like the purple paint - that color’s associated with royalty, but it’s against bare skin, so I’ll probably say something like, the light from the subject’s location allocates the power to him. If you take that away, he’s just a person with a form in the dark. You have to make your own opinion of him.”

When there’s no reply, Will glances away from the painting. 

His stomach lurches with surprise when he realizes that the guy’s been staring at _him_ instead of the oil piece, for what looks like quite some time now, and he spares a moment to take in the shock of hairstyle, the dark eyes, the cheekbones and the artistic wonder.

Will thinks that he’s really very attractive.

“I feel like you see so much more than I can,” the guy says quietly, in a scratchy, deep voice that makes Will shiver.

It’s energizing. It makes him _want_ to be social, which is disgusting if he thinks about it for more than two seconds. “What, you’re telling me you didn’t take a psychology class in freshman year?” Will grins, because a joke feels like the best way to smooth over the strange tension.

It almost works; the guy _does_ laugh to himself. But he neither confirms nor denies, and he seems to wrestle with an idea - Will can see it in the curl of a chewed bottom lip - before he says:

“This is gonna sound crazy, but-- I feel like I know you from somewhere. Is that crazy?”

Will wants to say ‘no’.

Will wants to say that he feels the same - that they’ve only spoken for a few minutes, but that it feels bizarrely comfortable and easy, as though they already know how to strike a dynamic they’re not even aware of yet. He wants to say that it doesn’t sound crazy at all, and that if it _is_ , then they’ve clearly and spontaneously gone crazy together.

But he doesn’t get a chance to, because they’re both interrupted before he can even open his mouth.

“Mike! You’ve been _forever_ , are you coming or what? Lucas says that El says _she’s_ paying for waffles if we hurry up!”

The guy glances over his shoulder - Redhead is waiting for him impatiently, stage whispering from three booths away - and then he turns back to Will, his face stricken, his stance torn.

“I have to go,” he says, strained and frustrated, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Will says, “go get your waffles. Thanks for talking to me about color.”

_“Mike!”_

“I’m coming, Max!” he bites back, just as viciously, but then noticeably softens when he turns to Will again. “No problem. Maybe I’ll see you at another show. You’re good. You’re _really_ good.”

And he leaves, with Redhead, before Will can even say ‘thank you’.

He thinks he might be sick. Like, right there in the exhibition hall.

Will’s honestly shell-shocked. This is the emotional equivalent to waiting at the bus stop in the rain, and having the bus not only drive completely past him, but splashing through the deepest, muddiest puddle on its way by. That voice, that red hair and reactive attitude, was Max from the college radio switchboard - clearer in the flesh than when she yells from the back of the broadcast booth, but it had _definitely_ been her.

And that can only mean that ‘Mike’…

‘Mike’ is Mike Wheeler.

Looking at his art. Admiring his handiwork.

Playing cheesy eighties music for him by night. Good fucking _god_.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s another week before Mike is back in the broadcast room.

Will doesn’t have anything to work on, for once - he’s even up to date with all of his written assignments - but nevertheless, he tunes in at the same time that he does every week.

And it’s _awkward_. Just for him, for obvious reasons, but Will tries to play it off, because it’s gonna be weird if he says, ‘hey, Mike Wheeler, we met in real life completely by chance, but I didn’t realize it was you until you were already leaving, so now I can’t say anything because I’ll look creepy for having more information than you do’.

Will barricades himself in the phone booth and plays it as cool as he can.

“--You’re through to Wheeler on the Mic. Don’t you have some assignments to be doing?”

“Max!” he says, “hey, it’s me, it’s Will, it’s Phone Guy Will. Hi.”

Oops. So much for playing it cool. “Hey, Will, how’s it going?” she says - he can already hear the telltale clicking and flicking of buttons and switches that will grant him access to the main show. “You sound a little stressed out there, dude. You good?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? I’m winning this eighties bet,” he tells her, and she bursts out laughing into the receiver.

“Right on, Phone Guy Will,” she says, “you show that asshole who’s boss of the airwaves.”

He doesn’t get to reply before she puts him on hold.

When Will is put through this time, he doesn’t get an introduction, and he’s not eased into it - straight away, Mike offers him a genial: “helloooo, Phone Guy Will! Ready for some another eighties contender tonight?”

“You betcha,” Will gets out.

“For those of you who don’t know,” Mike says, “Will and I have had a little bet going. If he still doesn’t like my eighties music choices by the Neophoria festival, I won’t play any more for the rest of the school year. How’s it going so far, Will?”

“Eeeehhhhh,” he replies, trying to convey wiggly uncertainty over just a phone line. “I mean… It could be better.”

“Ouch,” Mike snorts. “Harsh words from my best caller.”

Every so often, Mike will let loose a sentence into the world with no knowledge of its consequences. This particular one kinda feels like a shot of adrenaline right to the heart, and Will tries desperately not to drop the receiver.

“If you’re looking for ‘could be better’, then get ready for some top music from The Pretenders. This one’s been on my mind for a little while, and I-- I guess it’s kind of cliché?” Mike says. “But I like the general idea of running into people and having that feeling exist, like, out there in the wild. It makes it real, y’know?”

He clears his throat, as though he’s said too much.

Will doesn’t say anything. He holds his breath.

“Anyway,” Mike laughs, after a static second, “it’s a little different to the other songs because it’s more of an obvious, uhhh… _denial_ situation. But it’s still a love song. I’m trying to get a scope here to convert you.”

“You haven’t yet,” Will says dubiously.

“What?! _Nothing_? Nothing at all?” says Mike, scandalized, “you haven't even picked up any ideas to serenade a girl at her window or anything? _Damn_! You’re a tough customer, dude!”

Serenade a girl at her window? Will can’t help but laugh. “The only girl I could do that to on campus is someone from my hometown,” he snorts, “and her mom keeps trying to set us up over Thanksgiving breaks. I don’t want to encourage that with a ‘Say Anything’ stunt.”

Ad Mike laughs, long and loud, scratchy over the phone line (and most likely scratchier over the airwaves).

“Yeah, don’t try anything smart with this one,” he grins, and Will does too, unseen and safe. “Here’s ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ by The Pretenders. Have an artistic listening experience, Phone Guy Will… And have a _safe_ night, to everyone else who’s listening.”

Chrissie Hynde’s jangly rhythm guitar fades in.

Mike’s commentary fades out.

And Will disconnects from the show.

_Once in a while, two people meet_  
_Seemingly for no reason,_ _  
They just pass on the street..._

Yeah. It sounds about right.

* * *

Will actually goes to ‘the mainstream’.

Awkward and alone, he creeps past the bouncer, gets his hand stamped after his ID is scrutinized by admission, and heads upstairs. Because of _course_ the event is on the first floor of the bar. Something bigger seems to be happening on ground level, and it’s busy enough that he’s thankful not to be a part of it. He fully intends to sit at the bar with a sketchbook and people watch, then leave after a reasonable amount of time.

The only thing is, Will _hates_ bars. He hates how the people working them can see you coming from a mile away, and that all you can do is continue your cringe worthy approach while they watch you bumble over with your ID in your hand.

He’s new to the whole ‘of age’ thing, but it plays out exactly how he imagined it would.

“I have a weird question,” he says, after ordering, “I was wondering if it’d be okay if I could sit and draw--”

“Hm,” says the bartender, audibly over th music, and completely pauses her drink-making. Uh oh.

“I’m an art major, I have another exhibition at the gallery to prepare for,” Will says quickly, “I’ll stop if anyone asks me to, I just need the atmosphere on paper for my grade--”

And the bartender nods at him. “Been a while since we had a bar creep hanging out and lookin’ at girls,” she grins.

Even though the teasing tone is obvious, Will flushes with embarrassment. “I promise I won’t be a creep about it,” he says, “I’m not like that. Cross my heart.”

It’s a dangerously coded admission, but the bartender seems to be in a good mood, and she wordlessly slides him his drink without any further jokes. (Much to Will’s relief.)

“You just say the word if anyone gives you any trouble,” she says.

And that’s the end of it.

Honestly, this is why Will doesn’t like coming to these things. It’s so much unnecessary _stress_.

He chews on the straw and starts working - two women, with cropped hair and baggy jeans, are doing some interestingly rigid dancing, so he sketches out their angles as best he can. Will’s only got a small pack of chalk with him, but it’s perfect for lining them in club lights, all harsh highlights or soft dustings of pastel yellow and pink.

When he finishes up, he tries to move onto something else.

And it practically drops right into his lap.

There’s a raised platform when the DJ booth sits, boxy and solid, shadowed behind the controls and the decks. That’s not what catches Will’s eye, though - the DJ is a faceless figure, headphones and hunched posture, talking to someone with their feet barely on the dancefloor below. A casual leader. Someone with loose authority, perhaps. Stretching up to shout instructions is a tall and hugely-animated guy, whose hair lies as a harsh mop of wavy black on top of his head, and whose clothes seem to simultaneously be too short and too baggy for him.

It works.

It works for him.

(Which honestly works for Will, too.)

The realization is heart-hammeringly _weird_. Mike Wheeler, in the flesh, existing in a space and time when Will can knowingly and thoroughly look at him, for exactly the person he knows him to be - well, it’s a little overwhelming, and he finds that he wants to do something incredibly stupid, like go over and introduce himself properly, or talk to him, _really_ talk to him, or maybe tell him that Mike’s still losing their bet about eighties music. And _possibly_ add that he’s not sure if that last part is a lie.

He tries to throw the guy’s outline onto the page, but the lines seem too thin, and the lighting is too translucent. Like a haunting on paper. His hands are shaking. 

Will snaps his sketchbook shut, pockets it, and grabs his glass. Aw, screw it. He’s heading over.

A fear response starts to kick in about ten paces from him. Oddly enough, it’s almost like relief, full of laughter and poorly-repressed grins. He’s trying to contain his expression and not look crazy, right about the time his brain decides to tap Mike’s upper arm and say, “hey.”

Mike turns, broad shoulders adjusting like a set of handlebars. There’s a spark of surprise before his host facade kicks in: “hey there,” says Mike, as charming as ever. His generic friendliness and cheer is as consistent as with everyone who calls in to his show. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. I’m Mike. How are you finding ‘the mainstream’?”

Will can’t stop smiling. (It’s starting to hurt, actually.) He swallows, and tries to remember how to breathe:

“I’ve never been to a show like this before, actually,” he admits.

It’s worth every second of the night to see Mike’s face drop with recognition. “I’m sorry,” he says slowly, caught on the jagged edges of the sentence. “Was I wrong? Do I know you? Have we met?”

“Answered in order?” Will asks, and proceeds to list them off. “No, yes, and-- and kinda? I spoke to you at the exhibition, but that’s not where I know you from. You’re Mike Wheeler.”

Mike chokes on his drink.

“Will!” he manages to get out, palming at his chin, “--oh my god, that’s your voice. That’s your _face_. Holy shit! That was _you_ at the exhibition! Your hair is so different, what the _fuck_.”

He really tries not to, but he can’t help it; Will bursts out laughing. The more he talks to Mike, the more he realizes - while the guy isn’t shy, he’s not exactly a social savant, either. “I had to at least _try_ to dress up nice for a grade,” he says drily, and Mike chokes again, this time on his own laughter.

“Shit,” he says, “ _shit_ , I ditched you for waffles! What a mistake. I feel so stupid.”

“It’s okay,” says Will, “I didn’t know you were _you_ until Max called you. That’s the only reason I managed to piece things together - she said your goddamned name, man, it was hard to miss.”

Mike gapes. “No,” he says, “no, no, no…. The booth had _‘W. Byers’_ written on it! I wondered if it was you! God, we’re _stupid_ , Will. This is hilarious.”

“This is _fun_ ,” Will corrects, and for a second, both of them survey the scene: a well - worn wooden room, filled with near - physical basslines and drunken ex-band kids and juniors who should know better. _“For people who hate parties and techno?”_ he teases, “how could I pass _that_ up?”

“Oh, yeah, one of my other ones said ‘for newbies avoiding culture shock’,” Mike says. “Not everyone wants to rave instantly, you know? Plus, this place is wild literally every other day of the week… Even about an hour after ‘the mainstream’ closes, it’s booked out for private parties.”

“Ouch,” says Will.

They survey the scene. Will notices that the girls he sketched out earlier have moved on to a very robotic and slow set of dance moves together.

Mike shoves his hands in his pockets. “What do you think?”

“Of ‘the mainstream’? I like it,” he says honestly, surprising himself, “you know, I’m not really a night out kinda guy, but I’m really enjoying this. I like the music… And the atmosphere is gentler than I thought it would be. I feel like I could talk to anyone here pretty comfortably.”

“Oh, really? That’s cool,” says Mike, who’s-- who’s _so awkward_ , he’s toeing the floor with his shoe and swaying his shoulders backwards and forwards, and that’s about the moment Will considers that Mike, who is nerve wracking in the flesh, might be just as nervous to see _him_ in person, too. “Do you, uh, do you drink, Will?”

“Not really,” Will admits. “I’ve been twenty-one since March, but even before, I, uh, I don’t really like beer, so--”

“Oh, no, me neither!” Mike rushes out. It’s _endearing_ , oh god. “I was actually thinking we could stop off somewhere if you wanted something not-beer to drink, but I have cider in my room, and, uhh, some whiskey I stole from my sister the last time I saw her--”

“Cider sounds good,” says Will.

“Oh,” says Mike, stumbling - it looks like he hadn’t expected an agreement so soon, or so _easily_. “Well, I-- I don’t have to stay here. I have a playlist I leave with the DJ, and sometimes some friends turn up, but they didn’t. Tonight, I mean. So we can go whenever we wanna.”

Will raises his eyebrows.

“Do you want to go _now_?” he suggests.

And Mike, sounding very relieved, says, “God, _please_ , yeah.”

It takes all of two seconds for Mike to wrap up his affairs and dart for the door - whereas Will was a small kid who settled into being a taller one, Mike seems to move as though he never got used to his own arms and legs, and he gives himself too little room when he squeezes into the street. 

“Where do you live?” Will asks.

Mike jams his hands into his pockets again, then seems to reconsider, and lets them swing by his sides instead. “Uh,” he says, “I’m in Northwest, I’m sorry. It’s not far from here, but it’s probably a little while from where you are. Is that still okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been over that way,” Will says honestly. “It’d be cool to see.”

“Oh, man,” says Mike, with that same weight-bearing tone of relief. “I gotta be honest - I was worried you’d think I was serial killer-y if I invited you. Really I just wanted to hang out with you someplace that wasn’t so loud.”

Will can’t help but laugh. “I think if you do turn on me, then my motor skills are probably better than yours. No offence,” he grins. It’s true - Mike might be tall and gangly, but he’s also… Uh… _Spindly_.

They walk in the dark, past people heading out, and people who are calling it a night, down the strangely paved roads Will’s come to know and love, and through the streets of buildings which would look entirely modern and alien if they suddenly appeared in his hometown. College is still new and fun, even after years of attendance.

“No offense taken,” Mike admits. Apparently he’s just imagined a beatdown as easily as Will had suggested it. “Luckily, I make up for being the weediest of my friends by being the _smartest_. Plus I’ve got this big bundle-y snowcoat,” he adds, puffing his arms out, “so the padding helps if my moron buddies wanna start a fight.”

“Is it purple?” Will asks suddenly.

Mike steps into a pothole, tries not to trip, and eventually says: “ _yeah._ How’d you know?”

And Will shrugs, like he hadn’t just been hit with a memory set to Michael Jackson. “I think I’ve seen you on campus before, y’know,” he says, as casually as he can, “that color is kinda hard to miss. You were with this girl who looked like she could knock me out.”

“Was she a redhead?”

“No,” Will says, scanning his hand over his hairline to push his point, “she had, like, a buzzcut, I think.”

“Oh, El? Nah, she wouldn’t do that,” says Mike, and regains steady footing on the sidewalk. “A kick, though, that’d be more likely, she’s soccer-crazy. Apparently there might be a women’s team getting made. Varsity games and everything. Cool, right?”

“That _is_ cool,” Will says. “It must take a lot of hard work to make the team. You must be super proud of her.”

“I am,” says Mike.

They continue up to Mike’s building, thundering up the steps and elbowing their way through the door to the lobby. It’s only because the talking’s ceased that Will registers it had probably been nervous babbling at the time; now that they’re silent, it’s somehow even more uncertain between them. The anxiety of acquaintance, maybe.

Mike wiggles his key in the lock, but stops stock-still before he pushes it open: 

“I-- She’s not my girlfriend, you know,” he says. “El, I mean. We’re not like that.”

“Oh, okay,” says Will.

“Just in case you were wondering.”

Will hadn’t been wondering - he’d been fairly _sure_ \- but it seems unwise to say so.

Instead, he follows Mike into his dorm room.

Everything is quiet tonight. Clearly they’ve hit a prime crossover time, when sensible people have hit the hay and party animals are still making noise somewhere across town. The newness of Mike’s room leaves his ears ringing with shrill quiet; the visual noise, however, is astounding.

“Have you had a subscription to _Alternative Press_ for long?” he asks drily, scanning band posters for Sonic Youth and the album _Nevermind_.

“Not as long as I have for _Option_ ,” Mike replies, throwing a thumb in the general direction of what seems to be a messily filed stack of music magazines. “The Alt Press subscription was a graduation present. Cider?”

“Thanks,” says Will.

Mike digs a plastic box out from underneath his desk. “You know,” he says - apparently his talkativeness has returned now he’s back in his natural habitat - “I’m surprised you’re not in a band, or something. You’ve got that artist vibe, that multimedia air to you. Jack of all trades-- no, da Vinci, he was the artist who did everything, right? You could get a full house for sure. Painting, music, writing, the whole works.”

“Oh, god, no,” Will says, wrinkling his nose - he’s still standing in the middle of the carpet like a stranger, while Mike throws himself all over his own floor in search of alcohol, but it doesn’t feel awkward. “My brother, he’s the music connoisseur-- he doesn’t play anything, but he definitely knows how to appreciate it. He’s a photographer mostly, though. I just draw and stuff… Doesn’t make for much of a renaissance man.”

He’s expecting a can to be propelled his way, but instead, Mike rolls it across the carpet.

“I think you could,” he says, “you speak well. I think you could tell a good story.”

He presses his back against the struts of his bed and flicks the tab open. So Will copies him, taking a hard seat on the carpet, and a tentative sip. Cider’s not so bad when it’s not cold. Even if he hadn’t had a few room-temperature escapades in high school, he’d have been able to tolerate it, because everyone always drank it hot back home in the winter.

“I only speak well at night,” Will tells him. The taste of apple is bright on his tongue.

They bump the cans together. It feels like a bizarrely young gesture.

“It’s my _beautiful_ motivational soundtrack,” says Mike, after a theatrically long mouthful, “works up the soul, man. You should add some fresh tracks to your library.”

“They’re not _fresh_ , they’re _out-of-date_ \--”

“How dare you,” he says flatly, “I can’t believe this. When I win this bet, you’re gonna thank me for every future oral report you ever have to do. You’ll have a tried and tested hype man in your Walkman at all times!”

“It’s all about seventies music,” Will mutters, fighting the smile off his face and failing.

“Foundations, Phone Guy Will, you're talking about foundations,” says Mike. “It was all preparation for the shittest decade with the best soundtrack.”

There’s a stretch of silent seconds, laid out like stepping stones, that feels simple and safe. Will takes another sip of cider, and notes that on a hook on the back of the door, Mike’s purple snowcoat piles itself into the air.

Mike clears his throat. “I’m sorry I reminded you of being missing,” he says, “and I’m _double_ sorry I’m bringing it up again now if it wigs you out, but I wanted to say ‘sorry’ again. It was stupid. We can call off the bet if it’s too intense. I won’t mind, Will.”

He looks so earnest, and slightly ashamed, even, that Will feels bad for finding it funny.

“Are you _kidding?_ I could win modern music for the rest of the semester and you wanna weasel out of it?! No way!” Will grins.

“Really?”

 _“Really,”_ he says adamantly, “forget the music, _you’re_ the hype man I’ve needed to get all my assignments done. Nothing like some healthy competition to wrap up all your shit, right?”

“Right,” Mike says, and breaks into a big smile.

It does things to his dumb little heart. Oh, _wow_.

“Uh,” says Will, who is suddenly floundering under the nice attention. “It’s nice that you, um, care though. So… thanks.”

Mike nudges him. (God, it’s cute.) “No worries. I figured Madonna had done enough damage in the last decade without _my_ stupid ass contributing--”

Will snorts a little cider up his nose.

But Mike’s kind enough not to mention it. “If you wanna talk about it,” he says, still smiling, “I solemnly swear not to broadcast it live to the college masses. And if you want me to shut up, I can do that too.”

“No, it’s okay.”

Will plays with the ring pull of the can, before mustering up the courage, and diving in:

“I was twelve,” he says, “I lived in the sticks on the outskirts of town. Didn’t come home one night. The doctors think it was a psychotic episode, but… It was pretty real to me at the time.”

“Real?” Mike asks.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “pre-teen Will really thought he was in another world, running from monsters. _Real_ ones, not comic stuff.”

Mike doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t take his eyes off Will.

After a moment, he asks:

“Does twenty-something Will think that, too?”

Will’s never been asked that before. It’s an interesting question, without being painful - like squinting at a blue-green bruise without poking it.

“I don’t know,” he settles on. “I don’t see how it _could_ have been real, but…”

There’s nothing really else to say about it. Conviction is a weird thing to deconstruct.

Mike doesn’t say that he believes him. But he doesn’t do that thing other people used to do, where they look at him like they feel sorry on behalf of his craziness - and it makes Will feel a little better about telling him. It feels steady. Sure. _Secure._

Instead, Mike says:

“How long were you gone?”

“Almost six days,” says Will, and Mike hisses with sympathy. “Around day three, they found a body in the quarry water, and the coroner’s office thought it was me, so the cops stopped looking. Except for the Chief… My mom dragged him around the woods until they found something. She didn’t believe that body for a single second.”

“Dude!” grins Mike. “Your mom sounds _awesome_.”

“Yeah, she lost her shit,” Will admits, “she’s the coolest. Whole town thought she was certifiable for a while there. Even my brother thought she’d finally cracked.”

“She got her kid back, though,” Mike says quietly.

And yeah - that’s about it.

She _did_.

A smile tugs at the corners of Will’s mouth. “You know it,” he says, “that’s her! _Joyce Byers, mama bear of Roane County, raising the dead with sheer mom rage--”_

“I like you, Will,” Mike grins, from out of nowhere. “You joke about the weirdest stuff.”

“Oh,” Will says.

He’s got to be honest - he’s a little pleased with that. Will’s probably too light about the darker stuff, sure. But that’s mostly because if people in high school were gonna bring up the shittiest parts of his life all the time, Will at least had the power to make mentioning them funny _and_ uncomfortable. It’s enjoyable for him and incredibly awkward for everyone else, which is a welcome switcheroo.

“Sorry,” says Mike, “was that too weird? I really like your humor is all, so--”

“It’s fine,” says Will.

“Good. ‘Cos I was worried I’d weirded you out. The stuff you come out with,” Mike says, “it makes me think, y’know? Who calls into a radio show with a follow up to the last song? It was like you built a story out of it.”

He doesn’t really know how to respond to that, but it’s kinda funny that Mike thinks Will could ever build a story for him. To disguise how flattered he is, he laughs into the rim of his can, and takes another mouthful of cider.

“You picked up _my_ can,” Mike says.

Will chokes. “Shit!” he splutters, acutely aware of the fact that his mouth has just touched where Mike’s had been seconds ago, “sorry, man, I didn’t mean to steal your--”

“S’okay,” says Mike, too easily.

Will clears his throat and watches, as Mike reaches over to grab Will’s can, and steals a similar amount back.

“There,” Mike grins, “now we’re even.”

And he swaps their drinks back over.

“Yeah,” Will mumbles. He stares at the logo, like it might explain how Mike finds this quasi-flirting so _easy_. “I guess we’re even.”

“Will?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to stay over?” Mike asks.

His breath hitches. It has nothing to do with inhaling the wrong drink. “Yes,” he says, heart thudding in his chest so dizzyingly that he's sure he must look like a cartoon, “I’d like that a lot.”

“Okay, ‘cos I should lay it out in the open,” says Mike, “I wasn’t expecting to get this far and I don’t know what you might be thinking about. I don’t really… do… _this_. Big _or_ little stuff.”

“I haven’t much,” says Will. “I think we might be in the same boat.”

His smile is shaky; he’s not sure he wants to rush this. Even in the safety of this dimly lit dorm room, within the four walls keeping the early morning contained and expelled at the same time, a kiss feels too big.

It’s not like he’s out of his depth too bad - Will’s kissed boys before. Thoroughly and nicely, in fact. When he was sixteen, one of the Hawkins High linebackers had pulled him behind the bleachers, and kept on doing it for a whole semester. Will’s never been someone who skipped classes, really, but that had been an extremely important exception to the rule - and _then_ there was that time in freshman year of college, where he’d shared a joint and a few weirdly intense and giggly kisses with that guy who had his own silk screen printer. (He’d been _fun_.)

But nothing _substantial_ ever came from either of those.

(It didn’t help that Linebacker Mark had kept hinting he wanted to make out in the woods Will went missing in that one time, which to be honest _really_ set off Will’s panic response, so he’d put a stop to the whole business fairly fast. And the screen printer guy had dropped out to move to California.)

So he’s not totally new to the whole thing… but it’s not like he’s a pro, either.

“Have you done this before?” he asks instead. “Kissing, like-- guys?”

“Not well,” Mike admits, and it unexpectedly drags a laugh out of Will’s mouth. Mike grins, hugely, and says: “I’m glad we’re here instead of sitting against a sink in the men’s restroom, let’s put it that way. Definitely one of the grossest things I’ve ever walked away from.”

“You walked away?!”

“Yeah,” he snorts, “it was like, mid-kiss, and then inside I was thinking, you know what, actually? This is disgusting. I have to go to Biology. I’d _rather_ go to Biology.”

“Awkward,” Will snorts.

“Yeah, what isn’t? All romance stuff is mega-fucking-awkward,” says Mike, and pings the ring pull on his cider. “This is the first time I haven’t felt like the entire situation has been dicey as hell the whole way through.”

“Situation?”

“Getting to know someone,” he clarifies.

“Ah,” says Will, who’s about forty percent of his way through a genuine heart attack.

Mike suddenly braces his hands on his legs and hauls himself up, halfway-standing so that he can throw himself back onto his bed. Will doesn’t want to stare, but a series of slaps against the sheets make him twist to look over his shoulder - Mike’s gesturing for Will to collapse next to him.

Whether or not this is more or less nerve wracking than a kiss is to be decided.

Will yanks his shoes off, because he’s not a fucking barbarian, and forces himself to untense when he clambers onto the bed. Hanging out with a 2x4 is definitely not gonna be a good time for Mike.

“Why do you think we’re not dicing our situation, then?” he asks. (Mostly because he feels like they’re pushing their luck, but also because it still seems remarkably _safe_.)

Mike’s silent laughter shakes the mattress. “I don’t know,” he decides, grinning, “it’s like… I already know you and I already like you. Feels easy. To me, anyway.”

“Yeah,” breathes Will.

Maybe laying together without doing anything else _is_ better. It’s nice just to talk in each other’s company. (And when Will turns his head, he can see Mike’s pulse jumping in his neck wildly.)

“I’ve never been to a parade,” he murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Just thinking about it. Like, stuff I wanna do, but I haven’t. There was a big parade last year,” Will says, daringly brushing his elbow against Mike’s arm, “I was waiting for my brother downtown, and they went down the road two blocks from view. I just… watched them go by. It’s all I could do.”

Mike seems to know what he’s talking about: The Pride Parade. Young and old, jubilant and furious. The paraders walk down to Monument Circle, and the celebrations last for almost two weeks. It happens every June.

“Imagine the chafing, though,” Mike settles on saying, and then, miracle of all miracles - he _curls in closer_ , holding Will’s giggles physically between them. “I don’t think I’m up to the challenge. Man, that’s a _lot_ of walking.”

“Too right,” Will agrees.

“You’re supposed to go on walks to calm down,” he says. “My mom always used to tell me to do that when finals were coming up.”

With a fiery burst of courage, Will tangles his fingers with Mike’s, and lets their joined hands rest over his thrumming heartbeat. 

“I think it helps if you’re walking _with_ someone,” he suggests, and he feels, rather than sees, Mike’s nod of agreement. 

The cider cans sit, half-full and forgotten, gently warming. It’s ridiculously deep into the early morning hours. Something weary settles over the room, and the two of them don’t talk about anything further - only a dialogue in breaths. Their discussion has lifted the last weight of consciousness from them.

Within minutes, he and Mike have both drifted off completely, and Will doesn’t wake up until well after the sun has come up.


	6. Chapter 6

“You said your brother called and he’s coming on, what, Sunday?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Maybe I’ll see him in the afternoon then, it’ll be nice to say hi. Maybe get a picture. Did you say he was coming for the festival opening?”

“…Yep.”

“Cool. Oh, by the way - I’m not like everybody else.”

Will jumps.

“What?” he says.

 _“I’m Not Like Everybody Else,”_ Jennifer repeats, banging _The Kinks’ Ultimate Collection_ cassette against his arm again. “That was my favorite track. Everything okay?”

Oh. That made much more sense. He accepts the tape: “yeah,” he says, “yeah, just tired. I overslept this morning.”

“I’ll say. Mindy says you shot in here like a missile at a minute past the hour,” she grins. “And in the same outfit as yesterday? _William_. My mother’s going to be so disappointed.”

“You could’ve at least packed a change of clothes in the bags under your eyes,” adds Mandy.

“Jen, are you coming to pick up your friends, or are you just gonna yammer on about stuff you don’t know anything about?” he asks her. 

“Oooh, _meow_!”

“Seriously,” he says, fighting off a smile and a yawn at the same time, “I stayed with a friend after a night out. That’s _it_. Stop turning it into those pulp novels you secretly sold from your locker in senior year.”

She sniffs. “That was a lucrative business and you know it.”

“I don’t think he overslept at all,” says Mindy, “I think Will had as nice a morning as he did last night.”

“I didn’t!” he protests. Being friends with girls is so difficult sometimes - their fantasy expectations are so _high_. “All I did this morning was _leave_. I had class. I left and grabbed my things and ran here. I didn’t even wake up until twenty minutes before class was supposed to start.”

The three of them stare at him.

“What?” he says.

“Will! You just _left_?” says Mindy.

“What’s wrong with that?” Will asks. “Of course I left! It was time to go!”

“You’re dense as concrete,” says Mandy, shaking her head with dismay. “You can’t just leave, you gotta wrap up the night properly! I bet you didn’t say goodbye. I bet you didn’t leave a note.”

“I said _goodbye_ ,” Will grumbles. And he had done - Mike had turned over, still fully clothed, and mumbled some kind of response, then he’d fallen back asleep again before Will had even yanked open the door. He hadn’t had _time_ to write a note.

“You’d better try to apologize to her the next time you see her,” Jennifer says sternly. “Maybe you should offer to take her out somewhere. The Festival is this weekend, that might be fun if you met her at a gig last night--”

“It’s not like that!”

See, now Will’s worried. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to run away this morning, essentially. But he hadn’t really had any other choice, and he’d had a nice time, and the two of them are definitely gonna talk again - right?

Right?

He’s definitely gonna caffeinate himself and catch the _whole_ radio show this week. 

Will tries to go into the broadcast room a few times that week. Twice, he manages to get through, but Mike isn’t there - instead, he only gets to speak to a sourfaced brunet named Aaron, who is apparently one of the media tech students. The only other time, on Friday afternoon, Will fights his way through crew hauling equipment, and doesn’t see anyone he recognizes.

No worries. If he can’t get through to the broadcast room physically, then he might as well try technologically.

“Switchboard, Max speaking--”

“Hey, Max, it’s Will,” he says.

“Aw, Phone Guy Will! This isn't your usual number. Where the hell are _you_ calling from?”

“The booths out front,” he says, twisting over his shoulder - no-one waiting their turn. That means there’s no rush. “Listen, I know it’s not _Wheeler on the Mic_ time, but is Mike there at all? I’ve been trying to find him all week, but I guess you guys are super busy with Neophoria. I only spoke to this guy who didn’t seem like he was happy to have visitors.”

“Oh,” she says, “that’s Aaron, ignore him, he’s a miserable jerkoff. This is extra credit crap that everyone else is bored with and doesn’t care about, so me and Mike, we’re spread pretty thin trying to pull this all off.”

“That sucks.”

“I guess. It’ll be over soon though. Mike’s not here at the moment,” she says, actually sounding kinda sorry, “but if you wanna call tomorrow, I can put you through like I usually do! You’re a priority caller these days.”

“Thanks, Max,” he tells her, and doesn’t mention how his heart is sinking.

When Saturday night winds down, lulling enough for the new wave tracks to be almost comforting, Will finds himself doing… extracurriculars. He hasn’t collaged for a while, but Mike’s shitty poster for ‘the mainstream’ made him realize how much he’d missed screwing around with old magazines to make something new. It’s therapeutic, almost, to cut and paste and create with a beat in the backdrop.

It’s also kinda because he’s not sure _how_ to call and approach… whatever is happening with him and Mike. It doesn’t seem right to broadcast something potentially tense to the whole campus. Maybe he’ll call up when the show’s come to a close, so the only person he has to embarrass himself in front of is Max, instead of the weekend party crowd that sometimes join their company.

Mike doesn’t sound different in any way, or sad - there’s no warning signs or red flags, which Will doesn’t know what to make of. All he can tell is that Mike’s voice has mended, right up to full functionality, and that it seems to be business as usual.

“--and if you want to see me at the festival, I’ll be introducing you all to Neophoria before nightfall, I have a slot on stage where I’m gonna be talking and putting on a big playlist for you--”

That is… Until the last ten minutes of _Wheeler on the Mic_ ’s scheduled slot.

Will hasn’t heard a song specific to their bet so far - probably because he hasn’t called yet - but Mike softens, from his previously amused playfulness when dealing with drunk callers at the start, and his loud banter through the wall between the switchboard and the booth afterwards. It’s abrupt. It’s _tender_.

Will holds his breath and listens.

“So we’re winding down for the night, folks,” Mike says, “and it’s getting pretty late, and I’m sure nearly no-one’s listening, same as always. But somewhere on campus, I think that there’s a guy out there making art late into the night, because he’s got a totally weird sleep schedule I can’t figure out. That’s okay, though… I might have time. Don’t know yet.”

God, Mike’s _mumbling_ , almost, soft against the crackle of the broadcast, and heavy with confession.

Will’s hands put down his scissors before his brain even realizes they’re shaking.

“I started this stupid challenge thing without thinking about it,” says Mike, “and then I got pulled into something bigger than I expected. Art exhibitions and DJ sets and-- well, it doesn’t matter, y’know? Anyway, I’m a coward and I’m doing this right at the end so I can make a quick escape. I don’t even know how you feel about it. Maybe you were right to run.”

“Idiot,” Will whispers.

“But if you’re out there, Phone Guy,” Mike says shakily - and god, Will wishes that he was _here_ saying it, not just projecting his voice into Will’s room - “then come see me tomorrow. Noon, or so. I’m swinging by the radio room before the festival set-up starts to grab some things, and we can hang out before the evening set, if you want-- grab some food, I don’t know. I wanna see you again. And if you don’t turn up, I won’t take it badly, I promise.”

Mike's voice cracks, just as Will's heart does the same:

“I'll understand,” he croaks. 

And Will doesn't have any doubts about that. But he doesn't want him to _have_ to understand, because he doesn't want to say _no_ to him. 

There’s a click, and an undercurrent of whitenoise fills the airwaves:

“Here’s Roger Waters with ‘5:11AM’,” Mike says, the feeling evident even from within his introductory script. “This one’s for you, Will. I hope I see you again.”

The guitar bursts into life, in bright major chords, stepping down into deeper minors, and birds are singing, and Will’s heart is thumping a hundred times more painfully than when he and Mike fell asleep together in his dorm room.

_Then the moment of clarity_ _  
_ _Faded like charity does,_ _  
_ _Sometimes I open one eye_

The strings start to build.

Will strikes out blind, glue-sticky hands for his sneakers.

_And I put out my hand just to touch your soft hair_ _  
_ _To make sure in the darkness that you were still there_ _  
_ _And I have to admit, I was just a little afraid_ _  
_ _Oh, yeah._

The laces choke tightly into double knots, cutting into his ankles.

_But then--_

By the time the horns have trailed off, leaving only the birdsong and the breathy, acoustic strumming, Will’s grabbed his keys and shrugged on a jacket. He darts right for the door, but as soon as he reaches the handle, he freezes-- Just in case--

_I had a little bit of luck, you were awake_ _  
_ _I couldn't take another moment alone._

Silence.

(Distantly, Will catches echoes of people on another floor stumbling back home.)

After the song ends, nothing else happens - _Wheeler on the Mic_ has finished broadcasting entirely. Clearly Mike intended the song to speak for itself, not to mention speak for _him_ , so there’s nothing else Will can do but sprint through the fire escape. It’s like the first time he called, but ten thousand times more horrifyingly scary, and a _million_ times more important.

He jumps the bottom steps of every flight like a child, and explodes into the brisk outside with an enormous crash. His pulse is louder than his shoes, slapping against the concrete, but he can’t hear either over his breath when he finally throws himself into the phone booth.

The receiver’s been ripped out.

Will stares blankly at it.

“Fuck,” he says, to no-one in particular.

His ribs are heaving. He needs to get to another booth. The nearest ones are on the other side of the dorms, there’s a huge rack of like, six of them, but by the time he sprints over there it’ll be too late anyway.

He backs out into the night air again. It’s sweet smelling, carrying the arrival of summer over, but he barely registers it.

Will might have just fucked this whole thing up by waiting too long.

* * *

Morning comes, like always. After his only classes - a ten o’clock seminar that he’s already written most of the final assignment for - Will hotfoots it over the broadcast room. It’s strangely quiet. The equipment he’d seen being hauled through the halls has evidently departed for its destination by now.

Neophoria lasts from a Sunday to Sunday. It’s a whole week of specific parties, stages, stalls, and events, designed to keep people from losing their minds over finals, and to contain their nonsense in a slightly-safer setting than if they’d just been allowed to roam free around Bloomington. He’s sure they’ve got their work cut out for them, but Will’s _really_ hoping for those few minutes with Mike to clear up any potential misunderstandings.

He bursts into the broadcast room.

Aaron looks up at the enormous crash, but he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the slightly-out-of-breath art major who just clattered into his vicinity.

“Oh, it’s you again,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Will, because Aaron definitely doesn’t remember his name, despite having met him twice in the last week. “Is Mike here? He said he’d be setting up for the festival right now--”

“Oh, no, he left ages ago with all the electronics,” Aaron says flippantly, “we were told this morning not to let him back into the wing. There was a big meeting with one of the faculty members when he got here and everything.”

“Excuse me?” says Will.

Aaron picks at his fingernails. “Good riddance, in my opinion… I can't believe I was working with a guy like _that_ for so long,” he says.

“Like _what_?” Will asks. _Sharply_. 

The technician raises an eyebrow at the sudden challenge.

“Like _queer_ ,” he says, curling his lip. “What, kid, are _you_ gay as well? Don’t tell me his don’t-take-drugs show has got _fans_.”

When Will had been twelve years old, he’d seen his mom drop an atomic ass-chewing on the Roane County coroner for misidentifying his body. She hadn’t ever said a lot about searching for him after his own funeral, but Will knows she managed to rope the Chief in somehow. He can only imagine that he’d been subject to a similar level of nuclear rage.

The point is, Will deeply respects the way that his kind, compassionate, _tiny_ and neurotic mother can totally snipe a man with three sentences.

And he’s picked up a little over the years.

“Gay? _Yes!”_ Will spits. “Yes I _am!_ I really liked that stupid fucking show, and I really like _him_ , so why don't you back the fuck off and let me know where the hell he _went_ , asshole! Mike and Max are the only people carrying your sorry excuse for a department through Neophoria at _all!”_

“Fuck you,” says Aaron, flushing a furious red. “He’s not here anymore. That’s all I know.”

“You’re as much use as a glass baseball bat. I hope your extra credit is worth it,” Will replies savagely, and slams the door behind him as he goes.

Maybe Mike’s still around. He did say twelve PM - maybe he’s in the general area. Will exits the building, wondering where he’d go if he wasn’t allowed back inside. What a shitty thing to tell the guy who worked the college radio night shift slot - on a _Saturday_ \- for _free_. Will doesn’t even think he and Max get anything more than a line of experience on a resumé for it.

He waits outside for ages. There’s no-one by the phone booths he’d called Max from the other day, no-one expecting him in the courtyard or amidst the volunteers in bright jackets pulling Neophoria supplies across campus. Will pulls out his Walkman and listens to Shakespears Sister, pacing and hoping Mike might be waiting for him somewhere, somehow. He even circles the building to cover every entrance. _Twice_.

Nothing.

Mike’s not here.


	7. Chapter 7

With no way to contact Mike, Will decides to head back to his room to pick up some bottled water and snacks and his jacket, to head onwards to the festival.

This is for several reasons. He might still catch Mike there after all - he doesn’t know where he is or when he’s featured, but it won’t be that hard to get a schedule and try to find him. (If Mike even still wants to see him… But that’s a problem to sort through later on.)

No, Will’s going to see Steve’s band playing, of course. Jonathan’s coming specially. Hell, they chose IU Bloomington solely so Will and Dustin didn’t have to travel to see them play during the semester. It’s entirely possible they still haven’t settled on a band name yet, but the plan is for Will and Dustin to investigate this when they debut.

But first - he has to go back to the dorms to refuel.

He’s literally just thinking about replacing Shakespears Sister with the cassette Jennifer had given him, when Will happens to see her moving across the courtyard towards him. He removes his headphones entirely. She looks distressed.

“Jen?” he asks, alarmed, and she keeps walking towards him, opening her arms, and suddenly folds him into a huge hug, right there in public.

He hesitantly hugs back.

“What’s going on? Are you okay, Jennifer? Did something happen?”

She draws back. Her blonde hair is half-draped over Will’s shoulders.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” she says - Will’s stomach twists in panic, and she hastily says, “no, not you, just-- the late night radio guy, I heard from Leslie in my first period class that he’d gotten fired, because he confessed on-air to liking this guy who kept calling in, and I asked her _‘do you know who the guy is?’_ , and she said no, no-one really did, he was ‘Phone Guy’, or ‘Will’ maybe, and then I thought-- well, you’re _always_ awake on Saturday nights, Will! You don’t even party! And then I remembered that the radio guy ran an alternative rock night on the same night you stayed out late with someone--”

“Can you take a breath?” Will asks, chuckling without meaning to, and she giggles, hands trembling from where they’re gripping his forearms. “You’re a genius. I hope you know that.”

“I was worried you weren’t okay,” she says, instead.

The ‘genius’ part is still true, even if she does want to ignore it; Will wonders what they would have been like if they’d been this close at Hawkins High. “I’m okay,” he confirms. “Jen, did you know? Like, even when we were in school. About-- about me. Did you know?” 

Jennifer shifts her weight from one foot to the other uneasily, before finally deciding on saying, in a very small and fragile voice, “I don’t _want_ to bring home an accountant, Will.”

Oh.

Will hugs her back just as fiercely. 

“Girls can be accountants,” he mumbles into her shoulder, chin pressed against the hem of her sweater, and he feels her collarbone vibrate with shaky laughter.

“They’d better be. One out of two is better than nothing.”

He pretends not to notice when she dabs at her eyes, because it a) seems like the kind thing to do, and b) he’d want others to show him the same gesture. Heaven knows tears happen to everyone at some point.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he tells her. “I’m gonna go see if I can contain the damage, if he still… I don’t know.”

“Aw, Will, I’m sure it’ll be okay. It sounded very sweet,” she says earnestly. “Oh! I did end up seeing your brother earlier, by the way, and get this - he was heading to the festival with _Steve Harrington_. From Hawkins High? I thought they hated each other. What the heck is _that_ all about?”

“Oh, that’s the whole reason why Jonathan’s here,” says Will. The explanation is so stupid, but then… so are Jonathan and Steve. “They liked the same girl in junior year. Then Steve’s best friend turned out to be super cool and Jonathan gets on with her like a house on fire, but-- like, Jonathan and Steve can’t stand each other but they don’t _actively_ try to beat the living daylights out of one another anymore? So I guess that’s an improvement. Actually, I think Jonathan might be his publicist,” he adds thoughtfully. “Or photographer. I don’t really know for sure. Listen, Jen, I gotta go--”

“No worries, of course you do, you gotta see him!” Jennifer says.

“Wait,” he asks, “Mike, or Jonathan?”

Jennifer bares her teeth in a grin that’s much more cheerful than earlier. “ _Both_ of them, you dolt,” she says, “get going! I’ll probably bump into you later.”

Right. Will jams his headphones back on and hotfoots it over to his building.

There’s some kind of commotion happening in his hallway - apparently Dustin has been ambushed, judging by his wide-open door and the yelling coming from within.

“Dustin?” he calls. “Dude? You ready to go later?”

_“Shhh!”_

A bright orange flash of lightning darts out into the corridor, hissing urgently; Will recoils.

“What?” he stage-whispers, “what’s going on?”

“You can’t wear _that_ , it’s a goddamned _music festival_ ,” says an unfamiliar voice, “get it together, man!”

Will stares at the redhead who’s blocking his way. She stares back at him, before glancing back through the doorway; a discarded sweatshirt pings into view, and she sidesteps it neatly, curling her lip.

Ah. Wait a second. Will knows this particular brand of attitude.

“Max?” he asks.

And Max turns suspiciously on her heel. Her unsettled surprise would probably be funny, if it hadn’t been for their current circumstances. “Fuck, it’s you!” she accuses, “Phone Guy Will! What the hell!”

“Yeah, it’s me! Hi,” he says, because he’s having a stressful day, and life keeps throwing him curveballs, but it’s no excuse to forget his manners. “What-- sorry, what are you doing _here_?”

She lightens immediately, now that she’s familiar with who she’s dealing with. “Oh, me and Lucas are trying to spatula Dustin out of his greasy dorm pit. What about you?”

“Uh… I live here,” he says weakly.

“You do?” Max says blankly. “Shit, I should-- I don’t know, that would’ve been easier. For Mike, I mean. Crazy. Hey, you okay after, uh...?”

“Yeah,” says Will, maybe a little too shortly. _After Mike changed his mind._ “Yeah, I’m fine. I-- have you spoken to him today?”

Okay, so sue him - he kinda wants to know any background info he can.

Max makes a strained face and grimaces at the wall. “I actually haven’t,” she admits. “I saw him in this big meeting this morning, but he didn’t say anything to me - he walked out straight afterwards. I haven’t seen him since.”

“That’s okay,” Will says, “I’ll just call into the show next week. You’ll patch me through, right?”

Max’s expression etches itself deeper into her face.

“Well… no,” she says. “Mike, uh… He’s not doing the show next week, Will. Or ever again. Neither am I.”

“What? Why?”

“He lost the gig,” she tells him. “That was what the meeting was for. And so did I-- well, I didn’t _lose_ my job, but I wasn’t gonna stick around to see who was lined up to replace him, y’know? So I left. He might be an asshole, but he’s the most competent asshole college radio’s ever had, and I didn’t wanna get stuck with debug by myself. I told them, I said: _you’d better find some other dumbass to carry your shit, ‘cos I’m out._ ”

“That’s good of you,” Will says weakly.

“Nah,” she hand-waves. “I’m with _him_ , not them. He’s lucky he got to keep the Neophoria stuff this week, but it would have been crazy to let him go a day before it kicked off.”

That’s a jumping-off point if Will ever heard one. “Do you know what time he’s starting?” he asks.

Max frowns, concentrating - another shirt flops dully against the open door behind her. “He’s doing bumpers for a lot of the afternoon,” she says. “I think he starts monitoring the food tent broadcasting at around six. It’s the tent that backs onto the dance floor in the courtyard--”

“Thanks,” Will says, and backs towards his own room. “Tell Dustin I’ll see him there, I gotta go--”

It’s coming together, somehow - Steve’s band, Max’s tip off, catching Mike before his show - and Will can feel his brain racing at a hundred miles a minute as he crams a sandwich into his face. His whole body is screaming for him to do something, but he doesn’t have a plan - doesn’t have the faintest idea what he might even _try_ to do - and it occurs to him that this is how adventurers in stories get themselves into trouble, by throwing themselves into the middle of situations just so they can live with having made _some_ kind of attempt at _something_.

It’s getting busier by the time he returns to the middle of campus. There’s already distant music streaming down the block in little rivers of sound, and Will tries to avoid elbows and toes when he weaves his way through the sidewalk crowds. 

The itinerary confirms Mike’s slot at six, on the third stage by the festival food stalls - that much is correct. And further down, to his surprise, is a band called ‘The Right Profiles’, who are playing at seven in the same location.

He’s not heard of them, but they sound familiar.

Interesting.

Will does what he always does - tentatively investigates. It’ll kill some time before he sees his brother at the performance, anyway. The third stage isn’t much at the moment, given that Mike is introducing it later, but there are still various technicians making sure the lights and sound are in the correct places, that the tarpaulins lining the area are going to properly protect the grass from getting mushy via everyone’s gross dancing feet. The decorations are already up to advertise the main acts over the week, and-- _huh_. There’s a banner with Steve’s head in the center, sandwiched between the bassist and drummer in silhouette. 

Well, that would be for ‘The Right Profiles’, apparently - although, thinking about it, Will remembers suddenly that it’s the title of a song by The Clash, Will remembers, so maybe Jonathan had had more of an input that he’d previously thought.

Either that or Robin had slipped it in on the sly to make both of them happy. (Which is probably more likely.)

Behind the stage, there’s a few large tents set up - to keep the new May heat out, presumably, and protect the equipment, but it also seems to be good for that enclosed backstage feel that Will likes so much. No harm in poking his nose back there. Especially if Mike might be setting up.

You can get inside pretty much anywhere if you pretend you’re supposed to be there, after all.

The first thing Will notices is that he’s wrong about the temperature. The pre-summer sunshine is fairly enjoyable out in the open - it’s just about t-shirt weather, even as the afternoon dims - but inside the shade of the tents, nothing about the heat is escaping. What little airflow the crew have mustered up is directed towards the clunky broadcast machines in an attempt to stop them from catching fire, he presumes.

The second thing Will notices is the raised voices.

“--can’t _believe_ you just ditched me after shit went down!”

“I didn’t know you were gonna _quit!_ You didn’t have to do that--”

Most of the volunteers are working outside in the coincidental cool, so it’s not hard for Will to press his back to one of the tent supports and stay out of sight. Better than anything else about them, he knows those two voices.

“Look,” Mike’s saying, “it wasn’t even about the show. I was upset that I managed to screw up something nice. I’m sorry I left, okay?”

“You _stupid_ asshole, he lives in Dustin’s dorm!” Max thunders. “I saw him when Lucas and me went over, and he looked like stressed out _shit_. You _knew_ we were under surveillance, you _knew_ the show was getting watched for obscenity stuff, you _lost your job,_ and put yourself at risk, and you made me _worry!”_

“Aw, Max. That’s sweet of you.”

“Belt the fuck up, Wheeler,” she snaps, “I’m serious! What were you thinking, telling whoever might’ve been listening like that?!”

“Listen,” Mike says, with the air of finality that gave him the gift of closing radio segments. “I would rather meet the boy than have the job. I’d rather tell the whole campus about it than keep living like _this_. I’d rather have Phone Guy Will.”

Will’s heart leaps into his throat, so violently that he has to stop himself choking on his own spit.

“You barely know him--”

“That’s what I was trying to fix!” Mike says. Will hears his watch rattle, presumably because he’s exasperatedly thrown out his arms: “I wanted to be-- like, did he say anything when you saw him? Did he think I stood him up?!”

“I don’t know! He asked what time you were starting, and he asked about next week so I told him we’d both left--”

“But was he mad at me?” Mike asks, voice wobbling, and Will’s heart melts into a summery little ice cream puddle, sweet and sad.

“No,” says Max.

Mike takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says, “okay, I’m gonna go on, I’m not gonna think about him, I’m gonna do my introduction set, and then I’m gonna come back to see if he’s hanging around. Maybe I can still fix this.”

“Good,” says Max, “because people are starting to arrive, and Stage One is packed _already_. You gotta handle this, dude, or I will personally murder you live on air myself.”

Will makes a run for it.

Oh, god. Getting caught listening to _that_ would have been awkward - how would he even explain himself? His head is spinning.

The main thing is - _Mike still wants him._ That much information still needs some time to sink in.

He’s brewing a vague plan of action, but Will’s rapidly running out of time - it’s already coming up to when Mike is supposed to be on, and Max is right. People are arriving. In the two goddamned seconds he’d ducked into the backstage tents, a small crowd has started to hover, trading bracelets and drinks and conversation right there in the open.

He forks over a quarter for a festival map, pinpointing the important locations just in case, and tries to keep an eye out for his brother. While Jonathan (or Steve, or Robin, or any of the band) remain out of sight, he does end up making eye contact with Dustin across the way, and darts over to see him and the two unfamiliar figures he’s grouped up with.

“Hey,” Will says to him, “you look nice.”

“See!” says Dustin indignantly to his friend, who Will definitely recognizes - that was Max’s boyfriend at the exhibition, and presumably the person who’d been arguing about fashion with Dustin earlier. “I told you it’d be fine. You can trust Will, he’s got an artist’s eye.”

“I’m Lucas,” says his friend flatly, “sorry Dustin’s being such a brat.”

“I’m not a _brat--_ ”

“We had to make you _shower_ , dude!”

 _“I had a rough Saturday,_ we’ve been through this!”

The other person they’re with is beginning to squint suspiciously. She’s got closely-shaved hair and a ridiculously formal blouse on, but she’s wearing it as though she could make anything, no matter how loud or unfashionable, look like it suited her.

“You’re Will?” she asks.

“Yeah,” says Will, “and you must be El, I heard a little about you. I like your shirt.”

I didn’t know you knew each other,” Dustin says off-handedly, “El, he’s _super_ talented, you should have seen that first exhibition. I modelled for this piece he did in oils that took like, months to dry, it was crazy - and now I can tick ‘being a museum muse’ off my bucket list, I guess. Muscles look insanely cool when they’re painted, did you guys know that?”

El’s not listening anymore - her eyes have darted to the third stage, and Will follows automatically. The crowd is denser, but according to his watch it’s just passed the hour, so it’s not too much of a surprise when the man of the hour makes an appearance.

“--I’m the host of ‘Wheeler on the Mic’, which airs at stupid o’clock on Saturday nights-slash-Sunday mornings… you’ve probably heard it if you’ve been in a cab right about that time, so that’ll explain why I’m on stage before the big acts make their entrance. Don’t do drugs, don’t drink and drive-- hell, you all know the drill, but it bears repeating. We’ve got a whole week of after-class shows, don’t do anything too stupid or you’ll get us all in trouble.”

He can feel eyes on him; it’s funny, the way El scrutinizes him. Like she’s piecing together a mystery while her friends bicker pointlessly in the background.

“You heard about me from Mike?” she asks.

“Yeah, I know you’re friends,” Will replies, and it seems to satisfy her.

Onstage, Mike’s distant silhouette is leaning down, trying to pick up something from the audience, and unfortunately it seems to be some kind of heckling. El’s face sets into a concrete frown; Will has zero desire to know what’s being said.

“Hey, yeah, I am!” says Mike. It echoes over the speaker system.

Though there’s a lovely amount of cheering, a discordance of booing rises above the crowd, and Will shrinks his shoulders at the low crowing coming from too close to their group. But Mike laughs outright at them; he looks positively _delighted_. El relaxes when he goes on to introduce something gentle and tinny and acoustic. He’s still picking out songs with a rhythm to ease people into the festivities, so he must be in an okay mood.

God, Will hopes to hell he still has a chance.

Lucas is still going. “Was it purple?” he asks. “Was it your back? In like, purplish paint--”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Dustin says.

“I saw that piece!” he explodes, “Dustin, that was _you?!”_

“What can I say, man, I’m artwork now. Thanks, Will.”

“No problem,” Will says automatically, because in all honesty, he hadn’t really been listening. He’s weighing up his options, and maybe - just _maybe_ \- he could be onto an idea here. “Hey, guys? You were with Max earlier, right? Did she say where she was gonna be?”

“Oh, she’s doing tech for the set,” Lucas says, “she’s not main for Mike, she’s helping with the radio broadcasting. Should be right at the back of tent five.”

“I gotta go find her,” Will says, “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Dustin catches his arm. “Hey, wait, Will-- Steve’s on at seven, did you see? You’ll be back, right? He’s pretty stoked about it, I think they really liked his stuff. Jonathan was super pleased, I even saw them hug and stuff earlier.”

“Oh, yeah?” Will asks breathlessly. “I guess they really did reach an agreement. Saw the banners earlier, they look great--”

Dustin wrinkles his nose. “They got Steve’s forehead wrong,” he says. “It’s too small.”

He considers this - it’s not completely false. He’s not planning on telling Steve that, though. “I’ll see you when the lights go up,” Will says, “I’ll be there for Steve’s band, just-- I gotta be somewhere, I’ll catch you later, I _swear_.”

“Okay,” Dustin calls after him, “but make sure you’re here! Robin said they were gonna hang out with us afterwards!”

Will, of course, is not gonna miss it for the _world_. It’s just that he’s had an excellent idea of how to put Mike at ease, if everything’s still going to wind up okay, and he has a very small timeframe in which he can carry out his plan. It takes a few wrong turns, but he smooths out his festival map and eventually pulls back the entrance covering for the fifth tent.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be back here!” says one of the techs.

“It’s cool, I’m with broadcast,” he shoots back, only half-lying. “Do you know where I can find Max?”

The technician stares at him blankly. “Max _who_?”

Ah. Will doesn’t know; he flounders, and it’s almost game over when _miracle of all miracles_ , he spots a beautiful shade of auburn moving around the mixing boards. “No worries!” he squeaks, “there she is! Excuse me--”

He shoulders his way through the lines of equipment as carefully and quickly as he can, tiptoeing through wires and people wearing enormous headsets.

Max catches sight of him before he can even fully approach her. “Hey, Will!” she grins, “I’m literally just finishing up my first shift, I’m heading over to see this band by the foodcourt with my boyfriend. You’ll have to let me know where you’re hanging out, I wanna--”

“Sorry,” he interrupts, “but what are you doing? Right now?”

“Programming in some songs for after the set,” she says, looking surprised. “Mike’s on stage doing introductions for his choices, but after he’s done, there’s about fifteen minutes of filler before the actual acts begin. On this stage, anyway. It’s supposed to be an hour, but he does about forty five minutes of these PSAs, and the last of his playlist plays through until the bands get settled. Boring, right?”

“Right,” says Will, thinking rapidly. “The songs - are they from a pre-determined list, or something?”

Max turns, eyeing him suspiciously, and says, “I feel like you have a request, Phone Guy Will.”

“Yeah,” he says, flushing, “I’m trying to wrap up this bet, y’know? If you could play it, you’d really be doing me a favor.”

She grins wickedly. “Oh, my god,” she says, “you want me to fuck with the broadcast, don’t you?”

“Will you do it?” he asks.

“‘Course I will,” she says, already crashing into a spinning chair to cycle through a huge trunk of vinyl and plastic. “I can do what I want, they can’t fire me twice. What did you have in mind?”

Will peers into the trunk. “This one,” he says immediately, pinching his fingers and plucking out the record that might save his skin. “I _knew_ he’d have it. I need, uh… Side A, track two. Will you schedule it for when he gets off stage?”

She accepts the sleeve, and playfully spins it on the thin sides between her flat palms. “Sure thing,” she grins, and like it’s second nature, she starts to fiddle with dials and swap the order of the records lined up for the turntables.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, still sliding switches and levels.

“I didn’t know he’d lost the whole job when I went to the broadcast room this morning,” Will tells her quietly. “I didn’t know until you told me in the dorms. Was that my fault?”

“Nah,” Max says, after some deliberation. “Luckily we still have to do the festival PSAs, that was too short notice to replace us for. Plus, no-one likes that gig, so…”

“Really?” asks Will.

“The ‘two in the morning, say no to drugs’ slot? Sure, we’re beating back the competition,” she says, rolling her eyes, “I actually think they might give it back to us once they realize how shitty it’s gonna be to try and fill the airtime. You can’t fire a guy for ‘perversion’, or whatever bullshit the faculty said to us, when we’re telling all the college gutter morons not to die on their watch.”

Will flinches.

“Is that what it was?” 

“Yeah,” she says.

“That’s disgusting,” says Will, “that’s fucking _nasty_. It’s 1992. They need to get over themselves.”

“Oh, Will… Oh, beloved Phone Guy Will,” Max says, and turns a dial up all the way for emphasis: “You _really_ don’t have to tell me twice. I’ll probably catch you in a minute - now get out there and enjoy your Neophoria. I’ll make sure your song airs.”

“Thank you,” Will breathes, and edges out the way he’d come in, past the same confused technician and the same hot walls of the tent. It shouldn’t take too long to get back to the stage by the food court - his watch says most of Mike’s slot is over, but he still has a slice of time left before he’s cutting it _too_ fine. 

The banners for Steve’s band are more helpful than originally anticipated, because they’re all lit up and they guide Will back towards the stage. His wristwatch keeps warning him unintentionally of the timeframe; his heart keeps thudding with nerves. And though his surroundings are setting a beat for him to follow, it does nothing but spur him on faster, outside of the confines of walking speed. Into a more rapid rhythm. Mike’s campus-wide radio broadcast isn’t settling him.

It’s edging towards evening, that part during sunset where there’s _just_ too little light to be convenient, but just enough left to be comforting. Will spots Mike leaving the stage as he approaches it, and immediately changes course to skirt the exits of the backstage tents; Steve’s probably in there freaking out already.

But he’s not there to catch Steve.

He’ll see the band when they go on. This won’t take long.

Will creeps in through a gap in the tent wall sheeting - he blends right in with the crew, bustling around and content to do their own thing. In a flash of deja vu, he heads for the same enclosed area he’d eavesdropped in last time; he’s not shocked to find it’s only populated with Max and Mike again, plus the distant boom of the tannoy speakers.

“--I’m sorry about blowing up before. I’m just gonna miss hanging out with you at our stupid job,” Max is saying quietly. “And… I’m sorry about why it happened, dude. It’s bullshit!”

“Man, me too,” Mike says, sighing out an enormous, heavy breath. He’s playing with the collar of his polo shirt. “I only got to play him a handful of songs. I didn’t even get to finish. That _sucks_. Besides, it was a stupid idea - he’s already got guys worth painting who aren’t gonna humiliate him on the airwaves, I was kidding myself that he’d wanna hang out with someone who runs club nights and stuff.”

“You are such a goddamned _numbskull!”_ Max splutters. “Mike! I’m literally _begging_ you to pull your head out of your asshole and have a human conversation with him.”

“Yeah, you should do that,” says Will, shakily.

And he steps into the open space. The two of them whip around so fast that Will _swears_ he gets sympathy whiplash. In a split second, he finds himself being stared at without any words to fill the gaps, like his presence is breaking up the dark as abruptly and blindingly as a strobe beam, and as though whispering would be as useless as it would be from onstage.

“Will,” Mike bursts out.

Max bites her lip. “You know what?” she says. “My spidey sense is tingling, and I’m pretty sure my boyfriend is about to do something really stupid, so I’m gonna go check the first aid tent. It’s not like El and Dustin are gonna stop him, so… I’ll, uh… catch you guys later.”

She scrunches her face into a smile, shooting it straight towards Will - as well as a little peace sign. _Two minutes_. And then, jabbing her thumb at the exit, Max promptly slips away into the festivities.

Which leaves Mike and Will alone.

“Last year,” Mike says eventually, “Lucas ate a peanut M&M so forcefully that he got a cut from the shell.”

Will jumps. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. He needed four stitches,” he grins, and Will can’t help but laugh.

“I just found out today that all my friends are friends with all your friends. It’s insane,” he says, “Lucas was in Dustin’s room throwing his clothes around and yelling at him. I can’t believe we have all these… _contacts_.”

“I guess shit comes together, yeah,” Mike says, infuriatingly casual for someone who basically just suggested that they were connected by destiny.

“Speaking of,” says Will, checking his watch, “I wanted to talk to you. About the bet.”

“I’m _so_ sorry, Will,” Mike immediately bursts out - his eyes are wide and earnest, his hands are expressive and sad and tense - “I didn’t know anyone but you was gonna be listening at the end, I didn’t mean to embarrass you and I definitely intended to meet you this morning, but I--”

“I know,” says Will gently. “I know, Mike. It’s alright.”

“But…” he says. “It… It didn’t _work_.”

And oh, wow - what an _idiot_. He still thinks he’s failed, somehow. What a poor, stupid idiot man Will’s decided to give his affections to. He smiles, bright and easy:

“It did, Mike. It _worked_.”

Mike’s frozen in place. He moves to jam his hands in his pockets, but decides against it in what looks like a fit of nervousness, so they remain at his sides, anxious and energized. Will notes that his fingertips are shaking and feels a huge surge of terrifying emotion.

“I actually thought the whole plan was kinda sweet,” he continues, sounding calmer than he really is and downplaying his opinions like a champ. “When you first started, I was like, _hey, imagine if this guy was trying to win me over with a custom romance playlist, that’d be so cool._ But Mike - I didn’t know it was _real!_ Not until--”

“‘Til Roger Waters?” Mike mumbles.

“Yeah,” he grins, “that almost killed me, y’know, I can’t believe you pulled something like that.”

“It was cowardly,” he says quickly.

“It was fucking _brave,_ actually,” says Will. “I was the coward, I chose class over saying a proper goodbye to you.”

Mike shakes his head, adamant even through the obvious anxiety. So Will plows on:

“I was thinking, that’s so nice, that he wants to win me over. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Mike. And then I realized,” he says, checking his watch - only a few seconds left - “that maybe _Mike Wheeler_ wanted to be won over with romantic songs from the last decade.”

Maybe he’ll get it.

But maybe he won’t - not straight away. Mike blinks. His breath is shallow and rapid, as though he might panic too hard if he were to inhale and exhale normally.

“Well,” he admits, “you’re, uh… You’re not wrong.”

“Didn’t think I was,” Will grins.

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. The tannoy trails off similarly over campus, making way for the next track--

“What’s that?” Mike says. He looks like he’s _actually_ panicking.

“It’s for you,” says Will, as the opening, crashing notes to the most romantic song he could dream of fill the air, right before Will gets to see the band from his hometown with all his friends, right in front of the whole college audience at one of the most anticipated events of the whole year. “I’m not an expert like you,” he adds, “it was just off the top of my head-- but I thought--”

_I pictured a rainbow_ _  
__You held it in your hands_ _  
__I had flashes_ _  
__But you saw the plan--_

Mike’s breath hitches.

“…Is this The Waterboys?” he says, the gasp lifting his voice into a register that sounds strangely high for him. “Will--!”

“It’s got all the musical pieces you like in a big song,” Will rushes, overwhelmed with the urge to justify his choice, “it’s got all these big brass stabs and harmonies, and the words are like, _you know how it feels!_ And you _do_ know, I feel like you get me in a way no-one else even really wants to!”

Mike looks like he’s about to pass out.

“I do want to know you properly,” he says seriously. “You put, like… actual _thought_ into this, dude. I feel like you won on _principle_ , you beat me at my own game--”

“Don’t call me ‘dude’ when I’m trying to win you over!”

“Don’t try and win me over if you can’t handle me calling you ‘dude’ every now and then,” Mike retorts, and then his hands clench at his sides in a twitchy sort of way, as though they’re tired of being empty.

So Will edges over until he can slip their palms together.

“I can handle it,” he says. “Just watch me.”

Will’s kissed boys before. A linebacker at sixteen. A screenprinter at eighteen. Behind bleachers and in the forest and up against the wall of a dingy, smoky dorm room. He thinks the volunteer Lit major at twenty-one is the best so far - soft and careful in an audio tent at a student music festival, with minimal tiptoes and such light, light breathing.

Mike lets go of his grasp, to slide his hands behind Will’s elbows and hold him closer, so Will goes a step further and curls his own around the curve of Mike’s neck. There’s nothing ferocious or desperate or quick about Mike’s warm mouth against his own.

And there’s something deeply, deeply romantic about dissolving any kind of lingering fear.

Will breaks their kiss with a gentle _click_. “I’m so glad you didn’t play any Kenny Loggins,” he says breathlessly, and Mike’s expression _finally_ crinkles into a brilliant, blinding smile - “that was gonna be the deal breaker for me, I’m not gonna lie.”

“Fucking Kenny Loggins,” he laughs, “I had to pull out the big guns to convince you already. No way was I gonna risk it all on _Kenny Loggins_.”

The world is still revolving oddly around them, as though the two of them are impossible to approach, protected by a weird forcefield of privacy. The volunteers keep bustling; the room remains deserted, save for Mike and Will. The radio broadcasts on.

 _I sighed,_ the song belts out - _and you swooned!_

And will doesn’t let him go. “I didn’t think you were actually trying to prove anything,” he says. “You wouldn’t have even needed a bet. I’ve liked you since you played Bronski Beat at 2AM way back in November.”

“Oh, you’re such a bitch,” Mike breathes. “I like you, Will, I like you _so_ much.”

“Cool,” says Will, and drags Mike down by the collar of his polo, standing on his tiptoes to push against Mike’s mouth with his own smile, awkward and stomach-swooping and definite.

_You climbed on the ladder, with the wind in your sails_ _  
__You came like a comet, blazing your trail_ _  
__Too high,_ _  
__Too far,_ _  
__Too soon -_ _  
__You saw the whole of the moon!_

Night is falling around them. The festival is going to be in full swing within the hour. Steve’s band is going to be entertaining, whether they’re any good or not. Jonathan’s probably gonna take a billion photos, and maybe two will come out satisfactory for Will’s liking.

He’s going to hang out with his newfound common friend group. The semester will continue.

“Come to Pride with me,” Mike blurts out, because he can’t seem to look away, and Will similarly can’t tear his eyes off him. “It’s in University Park this year, it’s gonna be fun. You said you hadn’t been before.”

“Yeah, okay,” Will says back, just as quickly, just as _rushed_ , like they’re both suddenly on fast-forward, like they might only get this minute of incredible, genuine contact before it’s ripped back from them, so they have to say everything as rapidly as they can. It’s not true, but maybe it’s an after-effect of a good outcome. Sinking in, and warping time. “I’ll come to Pride with you-- if you let me design your set posters for your club night.”

Mike makes a face, but he doesn’t let go.

“They weren’t _that_ bad--”

“They _were_ ,” Will cackles, “they really, _really_ were.”

“Fine then. Fair trade, I think,” Mike concedes, and follows it up with a radiant smile, like sunlight through cloud cover. “Ancient history, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s go to the future, Will. I wanna see what’s there.”

Will hopes it might be as bold as a Waterboys song and the affections of an early-morning radio host.

“But what if there’s monsters?” he can’t help but ask. “Back there, I mean. In the past.”

Mike tips their foreheads together.

“Then we leave them there,” he says simply.

And well, that’s just fine with him. That’s perfectly, perfectly alright.

* * *

_“What do you mean, purple again?”_

“I have an exhibition theme, now,” he explains, “Lucas looks good in purple. Maybe I’ll do a whole set.”

 _“You do have more models these days,”_ Jonathan says thoughtfully. _“How’s Mike and Max? After that whole thing?”_

“Oh, it’s like they never left. Turns out it doesn’t matter about who’s willing to do the don’t-do-drugs slot - when you’re the only people who know how to troubleshoot the radio when they close up for early hours, the college has to ask you to come back. Although I don’t think that ass-kicking from Robin did any harm,” he adds thoughtfully.

_“I’m glad. Faculty never knew what hit ‘em.”_

“Too right,” Will grins. “Still meeting us downtown?”

_“We’ll be there. Mom’s real excited, she’s made a sign and everything--”_

Oh, no. Will can’t _wait_ to be embarrassed by it. “Okay,” he says, “we’ll see you there. Me and El are coming down and seeing the others two blocks down, we’ve got a thing tomorrow, but we’ll definitely see you there.”

_“You’d better!”_

“I’ve gotta go, Jonathan, I’ve got ‘the mainstream’ tonight with Mike.”

 _“Can’t miss that,”_ says Jonathan gleefully, _“we’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Don’t stay out too late.”_

“No way,” Will grins. “Love you. See you at the parade.”

Big day, tomorrow - the days seem bigger all the time, recently. Will hangs up the receiver, and exits the booth. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Official playlist here ;)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2GpxSt1oe3e8ljWUTLIGxE)
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [@futureboy-ao3](https://futureboy-ao3.tumblr.com/). Come say hi!
> 
> Thanks for comments, kudos, and bookmarks! Y'all are the greatest. ♥♥


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